The Door With a Face
by Kimmae
Summary: Or, the Adventures of William P. Higgsbury and his Stalwart Friends. Finding themselves condemned to another world, dragged in by a mysterious illusionist with dark intentions, our daring hero attempts to find a means in which to return himself and his companions home before it's too late. Who is this Maxwell the Great? Find out in THE DOOR WITH A FACE!
1. Or, Our Infamous Scientist

Chapter One: Or, Our Infamous Scientist Finds Himself in a Peculiar Predicament

Imagine, if you will, a world much like ours. Grass fields full of roaming bicuspid bovinae and queer rodents burrowing their kingdom deep within the earth, arrayed forests teeming with life (and sometimes with unlife), mountains with veins of every colour, lush valleys rolling between them, the soggiest bogs and the driest deserts. Everything you could imagine in your own world…but of the likes you have never seen before.

Now, imagine such a place devoid of seemingly intelligent life but for one soul.

This soul was a ragged looking fellow. Hair of midnight that had been perpetually unkempt his entire life, clothes wrinkled and stained in general disarray, suggesting days without practising gentlemanly hygiene. Thin, wiry, pale, voice like a shrill trumpet, but quite possibly the best, most sagacious mind the modern world had ever known. A mind unparalleled, knowledgeable in countless fields ranging from archaeology to quantum theory. This was the finest gentleman scientist of the new age, the man who would finally complete the theory of everything and reinvent the modern era!

But I digress. Look, I believe our ambitious scientist might soon be joining us…

Doctor—ah, excuse me, I am taking liberty on half-truths—Wilson Percival Higgsbury woke slow, like a punch-drunk pugilist. He was lying upon a bed of flowers, with buttery-looking butterflies dancing about his head. Surely he was hallucinating; his head was pounding like a stampede at a safari, and butterflies did not appear buttery, ever. When he attempted to rise his bones creaked as would a haunted house, if such things existed. Stiff, sore, and sadly sedate, he rubbed his eyes to gaze upon an unfamiliar sight. Before him was a statue of a rather profligate gentleman, coattails fluttering in an eternal breeze, hands held out triumphant, a gasconade. For some reason Wilson felt familiar stirrings of discord bringing colour to his neck, but he hadn't a great idea as to why.

You see, kind reader, our dubiously accredited doctor had only inklings of how he had arrived here, for one look at the tinged sky and he was sure 'here' was no longer in His Majesty's realm. For months he had been a shut-in, a virtual agoraphobiac, so the connection between now and then was fragmented, for the days he could remember ran together like blurred ink. He had not left his home simply because he had been too devoted to his research of 'Them' to go elsewhere.

They had come to him in a trance of ecstasy. Even he knew it was absurd—he would dare not share it with another soul for how ludicrous it sounded—for this euphoric vision came to him as a rhapsodic voice from his radio. He believed the voice had reached him from another world. Some words had been distorted, others spoken with an odd emphasis on certain consonants, but the message had been clear enough. A higher being had transmitted knowledge beyond the reach of humans from another plane of existence unto his mind.

The first few days were full of doubt. Obviously he had spent too much time in hiding after that unpleasant business with the university, and perhaps the lack of human contact had made him grasp at straws for some form of reassurance. As the days wore on, however, he started to notice a difference. He truly knew of things he had not known before he accepted The Gift from the voice on the radio. Once he started to experiment on his new findings, he could not deny it. Their voice had given him fruitful knowledge. The least he could do was use that knowledge to build Them a door into the world.

He didn't even remember opening it.

Perhaps the voice on the other end had made an exchange. That world for this? Was that demon lurking on He Above's good green Earth now, Wilson's rightful home? Did the dastardly fiend offer him a cursed deal to trick him into entering another dimension? Confound it! Wilson got to his feet, shaking his fist at the effigy. There was a plaque at the bottom. There it read:

 _Maxwell the Great_

"Maxwell!" Wilson cried, unknowing of the man but possessed by rancour, sure that this was the devil who robbed him of his home. "You—you cad! Scoundrel! He Above as my witness, I will use the greater powers of my mind to…to _science_ my way out of your putrid cesspool of a world! You'll regret having ever given me Forbidden Knowledge!" Not his most eloquent oath, but his most heartfelt. Wilson _would_ find his way home, and if he had the chance, he would show that rakish fiend just who Doctor—ahem—Wilson Percival Higgsbury was!

With that, the animated man turned on his heel and stormed off. Then turned on his heel again and marched the other way. He did this several times before trying to determine the direction of the sun and use advanced calculations to find himself a body of water. Following his findings, he took a very lengthy walk through a dried-up gully, circled back through an evergreen forest, and wended through a boulder field. Eventually he found himself back at Maxwell's statue.

He kicked it. Of course, he had hurt his toe doing so, but when he hobbled off into the sunset, it was with grim satisfaction.


	2. In Which Our Protagonist Meets a Woman

Chapter Two: In Which Our Protagonist Meets a Woman of Questionable Judgement

 _Day 3. Approx. 10 o'clock in eve. Found charred meadow near base. Using charcoal as scribe tool. Forest fire from lightning storm? Am writing in pocket book on person of experiences. Only possession._

 _Location unknown. Must find adequate shelter. Agreeable weather: late spring. Exposure still a danger. Limited vision at night creates halluci_

The charcoal snapped, crumbling between his fingers.

"Blast," he muttered.

There was a noise.

He spun.

His meagre campfire only allowed him a visual radius of three feet, but he strained to see through the darkness, nonetheless. "What was that? Show yourself!"

Shadows danced in the corners of his eyes. From far away, the hoot of an owl sounded. Underneath the chirps of crickets and the rustle of tree branches in the wind, a low rumble undulated, as if the growl of a great beast lurking beneath the earth, waiting for its chance to devour him whole.

He heard another _crunch_.

With a trembling hand, he took up his walking stick, which was a tall knobby branch he had found earlier that day, gripping it by the middle, holding it near to his chest. "I'm armed. I'll not be afraid to strike!"

A young woman stepped into view, a lit lighter in her hand.

Another person! Why, he did not think it possible. Could she be a demon? No, even in the scanty firelight, she appeared to have all the features of a fellow human. After a time he realized he was still holding the stick high, poised for attack. He lowered it. "Oh. My apologies, miss, I thought I saw…"

"If you made a bigger fire, you would be able to see more." She shut the lighter and gestured indifferently at his craftsmanship.

"True," he responded warily, "however, the conservation of resources in uncertain circumstances is imperative to assuring survival."

She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "There's a whole forest full of trees just that way. I got some to share. Here—" She took off her pack and withdrew a splintered log from within, handing it to him. "Throw this on the fire."

Forgetting his manners, he accepted the log from her without a word and gently fed it to the flames. Soon the fire flared, consuming the log as would a beast that had not fed in days. The young woman, who was pallid and plain, lit up at the sight of it, eyes sparking and smile brightening as if waking on Godday morning. "Yes," she whispered.

Wilson watched her warily. "May I ask where you came from?"

She did not turn her attention away from the fire, but sat before it to stare lovingly into the blaze. "I'm not from around here," she said..

He sat with her. "No, I did not figure as much." She wore a red blouse and prim black skirt, and her hair, while tousled, was brushed and tied into two pigtails. He would have expected a native of the land to look exotic in some form or fashion, being that he had not seen evidence of industrialized urban centres. Though her voice was high and melodic, her dialect was harsh and had a hard landing, indicating that she was from somewhere in the Western world. "Forgive me, where are my manners? My name is Doct…er. Wilson Higgsbury."

"Willow von Brandt." She reached for her bag and produced yet another log.

"Are you sure about that?" Wilson inched farther away.

Willow lobbed the log at the fire like offering a large treat to a larger pet. Wilson yelped as cinders flew. He patted down his trousers and brushed his hands over his hair frantically, but luckily nothing on his person had caught flame.

"We have a lot of night to burn through," she informed him.

"Yes. Hm. Well." He rubbed his sweaty palms on his vest and scooted back next to her. "Miss Willow…how is it that you ended up here?"

"I saw your fire from the forest and thought it could use some more fuel."

"Yes, that is all well and good…and I thank you for that, but what I meant was: how did you end up here in this country?"

"Oh, this isn't a country," she said, aloof. "This is Limbo. It's run by demons."

"Run by…I see. Please, continue." Wilson placed a fist beneath his chin pensively. He wanted to see what she would say first about their predicament before telling her his version of events. Had Maxwell offered her forbidden knowledge as well? From the way she spoke and acted, he seriously doubted it. But she must have been connected to him somehow.

"It's not like I've been here before," Willow said with a shrug, "but there's nowhere else I could be."

"You do believe this is the afterlife?"

"Last thing I remember, the house was on fire. I mean, a _big_ fire. Bigger than I normally se…see. Then I woke up in a field two days ago. I was surrounded by stupid smelly flowers in the middle of an empty field. At least I found this backpack full of burnable things."

Wilson weighed his questions at length before speaking again. "But why is it you believe this place is run by demons?" Naturally, one would assume dark beings reigned over such a place as Limbo, but he wished to know why she would draw that conclusion.

"Ugh. This place is _lousy_ with 'em. You haven't seen any?" Willow briefly tore her attention away from the fire to make a face at Wilson. "Shadows, darting everywhere. The less sleep I get the more I see 'em, especially at night. Then there's the night monster. Trying to put out my fires. That's why you gotta keep it burning big, so the flames get rid of the shadows."

Wilson crossed his legs, crossed his arms, then uncrossed both, quite indecisive. "I see. Um, Miss Willow…does the name 'Maxwell' mean anything to you?"

"Maxwell? Uh. No. Why? Should it?"

"No, never mind. I only…I thought you looked familiar, through a mutual acquaintance," he lied.

Willow seemed to care little. The fire crackled and snapped, feasting on the logs greedily. She watched it as a mother doting over her child, like nothing could diminish her pride for her progeny.

Wilson cleared his throat. "Curious, that two seemingly unrelated people from such far parts of the world meet in an unfamiliar place."

"Why? Where are you from? New York?"

"I—no."

"Georgia."

"If I may—"

"Is this what Canada sounds like?"

"Would you please—" Wilson huffed and took some breaths. Her lack of worldliness was baffling. "Pardon me."

"I don't know much about accents. I only ever lived in San Francisco."

"I'm from Liverpool. That's in England. Across the Atlantic? Never mind. Though, I lived in London, near the college, for a time, until…"

"Until what?"

"It's not important. The fact remains we are no longer where we used to be. Tell me, what experiences have you had thus far in this place?"

And so, Willow began to list off a series of seemingly drab events stringing from her waking in the field to her meeting Wilson, with a few curious interludes ("I saw a field full of burning hairy beasts. It was odd. I have no idea how they got themselves on fire."). Chief details of her story included how she had managed to survive the darkness, especially when she believed demons plagued her from the shadows.

"I thought I was the only one here," she concluded, "'til I saw your fire. We should probably stick together."

After hearing her story of origin, his version of events made him seem sane. However…

"I suppose you are right. Survival in numbers." Being that he had made the door to this place, he did not think others would be able to make it in, or that he would see another face, friendly or…otherwise. "Perhaps there are others here as well," Wilson continued. "You've been able to find chopped wood for night fires. That means someone somewhere should have an axe."

"Or. You know. _Had_." Willow shrugged. "I got this backpack off a dead guy."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He'd been dead for a while. Mostly bones, all chewed clean. Maybe the shadow demons eat you if you get crazy enough."

Wilson eyed her pack with abject horror. He then made the Sign to He Above, with a silent prayer. "May he rest in peace."

Willow made a derisive noise. "Yeah, okay, sure. I'll go looking for alive people with you tomorrow. But they'd better not put out my fires."

Wilson crossed his heart. "I'll be sure to dissuade them as such."


	3. Where Our Two Adventurers Witness

Chapter Three: Where Our Two Adventurers Witness the Abernathy & Parker Circus Perform a Daring Feat

 _Day 4. Have met strange companion: Willow. Likely pyromaniac. Has burned my walking stick. Will travel w for now. Greater likelihood of survival & sanity._

 _Uproariously hungry. Must find sustenance. Unsure as to edibility of certain plants and animals. Have consumed tubers up until now. Will use caution. Char food before consuming. Willow should have no problem with this._

The lady in discussion stirred. She made a sound akin to a farm animal and rose stiffly. "I need food!" she whined.

Wilson tucked his pocketbook back inside his vest. "As do I. We should go forth and see what we can find."

"Some bacon plants would be nice," she suggested.

Wilson allowed Willow some time to mourn the loss of their campfire before setting off in the early daylight. They travelled east, farther into the green grasslands, thoughts of buttered biscuits and sizzling sausage not far behind them, making their bellies churn and groan.

They looked everywhere they would expect to find food in their own world—from trees, bushes, and the like—but they were unsuccessful. Willow even attempted to catch a rabbit, but failed miserably, having thrown rocks at it in a temper, chasing it away. While investigating food sources, Wilson had noted the vegetation had a queer quality about it. It had the feel and the look of appropriate flora but there was something of a disconnect in its composition. Perhaps the wind did not catch the foliage just right, or maybe the soil that grew the plant had a different acidic balance than back home. Whatever it was, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Some experiments would have to be in order. There was something fundamentally different about all life in this place, and he felt it held the key to their existence here…and, perhaps, even to their escape.

Still fruitless and hopeless, they travelled in lugubrious silence for a time before Willow decided to clear the air. "Say, I never asked you. How is it _you_ got here?"

Wilson felt his insides give a little jump. "Me?" he asked, earning him a leery look. "I, ahem, well. You see, I was, uh…" Now confronted with the question, he realized he had been holding a hefty amount of guilt on the issue. Surely he was solely responsible for their being here.

He had avoided looking at her, but he could see her slowly narrow her eyes into points at him from his peripherals. " _Heeey_ , you're being suspicious, weedy guy."

"Suspicious? Why, I don't know what you're on about." _No!_ he thought. _You are a brilliant gentleman and a scholar. Surely you can come up with a better tactic of diverting investigation. What if you're not to blame at all?_ If that was the case, why was he so nervous about telling her the truth?

"You hiding something from me?"

Wilson found his reserve cracking, much to his dismay. It should have been easy to invent a story. There were more complex things he had accomplished before, after all. For all he was worth, however, she had him unquestionably pinned. Would he cover his tracks with a sloppy explanation again, deflecting until she relented? Or would he tell the truth like a gentleman who may or may not still have been in His Majesty's service ought to do? "No, no, Miss Willow, I…er…"

" _RUUUN!_ "

The pair turned their attention to the eastern horizon, from whence the voice had originated.

Before I describe this scene to you, dear reader, I implore you to imagine some things of a very curious nature. Firstly, imagine the largest man you have ever known, not of gluttony but of strength, and increase his size further. Exaggerate his countenance by embiggening the muscles and shrinking the features—eyes, ears, nose, even hair—smaller than what you'd expect of a man of average stature. Now imagine that man of average stature, possibly slightly slimmer, dressed as a mime, clinging to this juggernaut's neck and shoulders for dear life.

Secondly, imagine an ostrich. No ordinary ostrich, but one of towering height, several storeys high. As you did in the exercise previous, shrink the wings to what you would have expected from the appropriately sized animal. Lastly, remove the head and neck of the ostrich, and place within its body a single gigantic eyeball, as large as a baby elephant, framed with black feathers and underscored with a small beak lined with sharks' teeth.

Such creatures were chasing such two men, the larger of whom had many bulbous eggs cradled in his arms.

"Holy CRAP!" Willow exclaimed. She turned to heed the large man's plea.

Wilson was not far behind. Together they raced back the way they had come, keeping a fair distance between them and the ghastly chase. Wilson threw looks over his shoulder to measure the distance. Though the tall bird-like creatures had long, gangly legs, they appeared to be having a time of it chasing down the egg thieves, constantly hesitating, stepping in serpentine behind the duo. Either the monsters had difficulty with depth perception or they feared accidentally stepping on their own precious unborn offspring by mistake.

"Into the forest!" Wilson called out. He and Willow veered from their path to head for the tightly knit trees, where he hoped the monsters would be thwarted, unable to traverse the small cavities with such awkward limbs. Neither Wilson nor Willow slowed once they passed the treeline. Wending through the pines like nimble foxes, they led the way to safety, for indeed the tall eyeball birds could not make chase in the woods.

Huffing and puffing, leaning on their knees, and perspiring like pigs is how Wilson and Willow greeted the peculiar pair of egg collectors. The largest man they had ever seen stood at least seven and a half feet tall, looming over them like a house. He had a ridiculous mustachio that curled at the ends like pigs' tails. Tatters of a unitard outgrown clung to his skin, making him look more the wild animal than a man. The person on his back appeared tiny in comparison to his mass, though the little man was at least of a size with Willow. He had pursed lips and hints of a frown on his painted face. When he waved in greeting he appeared apprehensive.

"Little smart people bring us safety!" the large man bellowed gaily. He knelt to place the eggs on the ground and pat both Wilson and Willow on their heads. His hand was big enough to wrap around their skulls. "Thank you, good little people!"

"I say—please stop— _ow!_ " Wilson swatted at the man's hand until he withdrew. "What were the both of you doing, daring to rob from such… _otherworldly_ creatures?" He still felt the stirrings of his sympathetic nervous system priming him for flight mode. The sight of those things had certainly put him in quite a tizzy!

"Yeah, what were those things?!" Willow shouted, clutching fistfuls of her hair at her crown. "Were those monsters?"

The big man slammed a fist on his chest. "Pah! Those not monsters. Me Wolfgang!" He flaunted by flexing every muscle he could gratuitously. "Mightier than stupid tallbird! Mightier than anything!"

Dumbfounded, Willow shook her fists at him. "Are you CRAZY?!"

Wilson thought her question apropos, but coming from her, quite incongruous. "Gentlemen, you had no way of knowing what you were getting yourselves into! Those birds could have very well been the end of you." And still could, he thought to himself. What if those gigantic eyeballs granted those demons unparalleled sight, and they followed their prey miles upon miles until they finally found revenge?

"I need food!" Wolfgang declared, slapping his belly, which was rather toned and taught. He had an odd inflection, but because of his blunt, simplistic speech, Wilson could not quite decipher what sort of accent this large fellow had. This strong-man then pointed to his spoils, which he had laid out at his feet. "Me find food."

"Those are a lot of eggs," Willow remarked, seeming to forget her fears. "Say…you didn't happen to, maybe, find yourselves some pig while you were out there too, did you?"

"Now, now, Willow, we mustn't forget ourselves," Wilson chastised. "Forgive me and my companion, good sirs. I am Wilson Percival Higgsbury of Kingston, and this is Willow von Brandt of San Francisco. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. I'm most glad we've escaped certain doom from those tallbirds."

"Who's the clown on your back?" Willow asked.

"This circus friend, Wesley," Wolfgang said by way of introduction. "We play together long time!"

The mime peered from over Wolfgang's shoulder. He drew pinched fingers over his lips and twisted his wrist, then threw away the invisible key. He shook his head sadly.

"The circus, you say?" Wilson gave them a quizzical look. How did two circus performers find themselves in this demon's realm?

"Abathy and Park!" Wolfgang cried with glee.

"Abernathy & Parker?" Willow asked. "I used to go see their shows when I was little. I loved the menagerie, they always had the tigers jumping through flaming hoops. The rest of it was boring, though."

Wilson began to ponder. He, Willow, and these two gentlemen of Abernathy & Parker were connected somehow. They _had_ to be, and Maxwell was in the centre of it.

But there were more pressing matters at hand. "Fellow travellers," he interjected, "might you be willing to share with us your spoils? We have been unsuccessful as of yet in securing a food source. To spare an egg or two would be most gracious of you…"

"Little good people should eat for saving us!" Wolfgang declared. He knelt to let Wesley off his back. "We build fire! Cook eggs."

"Hey! Wait! I've got it. Let me do it. I said _let me do it!_ " Willow set her sack on the forest floor and at once began constructing a place for a fire.

Wilson helped her by collecting fallen twigs and leaves for tinder and kindling, relieved that, at least for the time being, she had put her suspicions of him aside, maybe having forgotten them altogether. As long as he could keep her and their new friends distracted, he had a chance at finding a way of reclaiming their freedom of their home world before they discovered his malicious secret.

In short order the fire was ablaze and the eggs had been cooked thoroughly. Wolfgang swallowed the eggs whole, shell and all, at an alarming speed. Wesley silently played out a tragic play with his two eggs, which appeared to have much foreshadowing on the characters' certain demise by consumption. At first bite, Willow made her displeasure known, spewing and gagging and blowing raspberries. "Bacon plants would have been better," she muttered.

Wilson sighed, taking slow, delicate bites of his breakfast. He could not have asked for more eccentric comrades.


	4. One Ring to Rule Them All and in the

M, Chapter Four: One Ring to Rule Them All and in the Darkness Raise Some Questions

After their mid-morning meal, the four stranded souls agreed in their own way to join forces in search of suitable shelter. Wesley the silent clown preformed an indecipherable pantomime to tell them his thoughts, running from unseen enemies and cowering while covering his eyes. After he progressed to pulling invisible ropes and climbing invisible ladders, Willow and Wilson lost interest in watching and led their two new friends through the tightly-situated pines.

Much conversation was had between three of the travellers. When Wilson asked how the two fellows of Abernathy & Parker arrived in their current predicament, Wolfgang spoke instead of fractured memories of a harrowing childhood, where as an infant he was stolen by a band of gypsies, stowed away on a ship, and sold to a travelling circus which took him across the United States from Atlantic to Pacific and back many times, all the while he grew into a larger, stronger, more ferocious young man, and by the sounds of it, quite virile. He told them that he could only remember so much because of a terrible train accident in which their caravan was struck, rendering many lame, Wesley mute, and him half-witted. At least, this is what Wilson's understanding was of "Train go SMASH! Family bad boo-boos. Wesley stop talking. Head hurt long time."

In response, Willow spoke of her own childhood. As a child her mother and aunt went missing within days of each other, and with her father at large and no remaining family left was sent to St. Siobhan's Asylum for Orphaned Girls, one of the few orphanages still standing after the great earthquake of '06, and the only one she was eligible for. Her friends were few and far between, by the sounds of it, and quite possibly of an imaginary nature in most cases. When she came of age, she was no longer a ward of the state, and therefore no longer suitable to live in St. Siobhan's. So, instead, she petitioned for a position at the orphanage and was granted employment.

"They made you do a lot of Catholic stuff. I didn't like the nuns. Or doing nun things. But lighting candles for prayer... _that_ I liked." Wilson could imagine her in the chapel with a few dozen extra candles than necessary, smiling in glee as she basked in their hazardous glory. She then went on to describe innocently how the asylum caught fire from one of the neighbouring houses on the block and that was the last thing she remembered before arriving here.

"What about you?" she asked, somehow startling Wilson. "What were you like? Or were you just born a tall, skinny, weedy guy?"

"My childhood is of little consequence," he conceded whilst conjuring up memories of his past, taking trips to London with Mother to see magicians on stage, spending hours in the neighbouring woods at night holding exclusive seances and willing magic to sprout from his fingertips.

"Come on," Willow whined. "We all shared."

"Wolfgang give smart man egg! Wolfgang want story!"

Wesley traced a finger from his eye down his cheek, his frown dropping further.

"Truly, mine was a normal, happy childhood," Wilson said.

Ah, but there it was. Wilson's was not a happy childhood. In fact, Wilson's past was rife with mockery, disappointment, and shame, particularly in the case of relations with his father.

"I do not understand your obsession with the mystic arts," Doctor William Hunter Higgsbury had said quite sternly, towering over his son while wagging the _Magician's Handbook_ in his hand. "This is not the vocation of which a sensible gentleman should occupy himself. If you want to learn secrets of the universe to stun and mystify, take up the astronomer's almanac, for goodness sake."

Wilson had cowered in his chair while his father berated him over his closet full of magical toys, trinkets and trifles. His mother had stood behind her husband and had not said a thing, though the eyes she had given her son were full of sadness, with a touch of regret. She had often encouraged Wilson to pursue his interests, no matter how childish or demeaning her husband may have found them.

"I'll not have any more of this nonsense in my household. Understood?" William had tossed the book into a nearby box as he might a piece of rubbish. "I want your room cleared out of all of it by morning."

"Yes, sir," Wilson had said, breath held to help keep the tears at bay.

That evening, when his mother had helped him clear out his closet of his favourite effects, she had promised him they could still go to see magician shows when his father was away, if he liked. Truth be told, he had wished nothing more than to take her up on her offer. To this day, part of him, deep down in the far reaches of his subconscious, still clung to magical mysteries of the unexplained, yearned to learn secrets that no one else yet knew, discover power only he could wield. Alas, he had feared the taste of his father's disappointment above all, and decided to do what he could to never again encounter it. From that day on his magic cape was replaced by his white smock, his potion kit for a chemistry set. Wilson studied the sciences with fervour, but no matter how much he learned, it never quite quenched his thirst for knowledge. Science could not fill the hole magic left behind.

Wilson found himself lost in this memory, his feet growing heavier, his shoulders drooping, his head more and more difficult to keep lifted.

The others had moved on, their attention drawn instead to the silent mime, who was acting out what appeared to be a rather violent fight with himself.

As morning rolled into afternoon and afternoon into evening, the troupe crossed the forest to find a barren grassland on the other side. Opting to stay hidden within the protection of the forest, lest the tall bird beasts found them to enact revenge, they circled back, finding a well-trodden dirt path snaking east through the trees.

"Night is coming, and we still don't have adequate shelter," Wilson remarked. Though it was not cold, he shivered and rubbed his arms. "I fear we are in quite a predicament."

"We could set the forest on fire," Willow said casually. At the looks of alarm she received, she justified, "It'd keep us warm. And well-lit."

"Wolfgang would tear trees from ground, but..." The strong-man in question paused to allow his rumbling belly finish his sentence.

Wesley appeared to be tying an invisible noose with which to hang himself.

"No. We must keep a level head," said Wilson. "Perhaps we can find a suitable tree in which to take shelter under."

"Whoa, what is _that?_ " Willow pointed up the trail, prompting the three men to look.

There, lined in a perfect circle, was a collection of vile looking plants, all thorns and spirals and vines, their branches contorting in sinister mimicry reminiscent of torturous pain. The sight of them was enough to unsettle. Within the circle was a large golden band with peculiar engravings.

Wilson gasped to look upon it. Was that not...? But it was! The very same ring that They had taught him how to craft through the radio!

Wolfgang gave a whimper of sorts, Wesley pressed his fists to his mouth, and Willow placed her pack down and rummaged through it, as if to build another fire to fend off the sinister vegetation.

"That ring," Wilson said, "it...it could have _magnificent_ powers...I believe we should—"

Wolfgang informed Wilson, "Evil plants BAD! No ring for us. Go back now!"

Wolfgang and Wesley started walking in the opposite direction, both cowering as they went. Willow was scraping two rocks together over a pile of her twigs. "Listen, you want the ring thing so bad? We'll set the plants on fire, and once they've burned down, we'll grab that ring and book it."

Wilson could not take his eyes away from the peculiar sight. The remarkable way in which the flowers—were they flowers?—formed a perfect circle held his interest, but there was something daunting in looking at them that went beyond the thorns and blood-red petals. Was there some unseen force there, lurking in wait to claim the souls of those who approached?

What a ludicrous thought! Souls are a religious and philosophical construction to create a measure of comfort in providing eternal essence and a future beyond death. Yes, quite right. No such thing as souls here. No, sir. Wilson was definitely not of the belief that his theoretical soul was in mortal danger within sight of those flowers.

"So...I take that as a yes." Willow raised her lit lighter.

"Wait. There will be no time. I shall retrieve the ring," Wilson said, voice quivering, "then we shall follow our comrades to make camp. Night is near, so we will need that fire soon."

Willow didn't acknowledge him, instead she stared into the wisp of a fire she held in her hand.

Wilson approached. Ten steps to go. The air became chillier, a sharp coldness he had not felt the night before. Six steps to go. Did that flower just move? Three steps...two steps...

Wilson hopped over the plants and ran for the ring, grabbing hold of it and leapt back out of the circle. Without a second glance, he ran for Willow, the feeling of something hot on his heels driving him faster. "Run!" he implored. When he raced past her, he did not stop and wait, instead leaving her to her own devices (perhaps in the off chance that if something was chasing him, it would take her instead).

A few minutes up the trail they rejoined Wolfgang and Wesley, who were both looking small in the looming darkness. Wilson brandished his ring. "I've got it. I've got it!"

Willow arrived within moments to make a proper night fire. No one said a thing as Wilson examined the ring. Yes, yes, it was the very same! From the precise alloy plating to the collection of copper wires between the sections. This was...

"A quantum field harmonizer," he muttered in awe.

Willow grunted. "What's that?"

"This ring has the ability to focus dimensional energies. Don't you see?" Wilson brandished the ring. "We can use this ring to return to our own plane of existence!"

Willow stood slowly and crossed her arms. Wolfgang and Wesley looked at him strangely. The small creature that had been Wilson's paranoia was now a grown monster, tromping around in their camp at full tilt. He physically shrunk before them.

"How d'you know what that thing is if we've never been here before?" Willow asked, jabbing a finger at him.

"I...I only mean, this is what I can hypothesize from the construction of this ring," Wilson lied. It was completely dark now, the heart of night descending upon them as a lead blanket. Was it getting harder to breathe?

Wolfgang jumped with a yelp, spinning this way and that. Wesley patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. "Is not safe space," Wolfgang announced.

And he was right. There—over Willow's shoulder—something sped by soundlessly. Wilson leaned forward and blinked, staring into the abyss. "What was that?"

"There's nothing here, you crazy guy," Willow said. "Nothing can hurt you when there's a fire."

Except that They were there, watching, and Wilson was quite sure They could hurt him.

There were a dozen of them or more, as if they had always been there and Wilson had simply not been looking closely enough before. Glowing eyes waiting in the distance, watching, waiting for the opportune moment to strike and take what was theirs.

Wilson flung the ring down on the ground, sure that that was what they were after. Oh, no. He should have known! The beings of this world drew them in. Of course they would not want them to leave!

"You've been real sneaky since I met you," Willow said accusingly as a shadow dashed through their camp. "How do you know what this ring does? How is it you got to this place, huh?"

"I only...it's that I...He Above, woman, can you not see them?!"

From behind Willow came a shadow in the form of a claw, snaking its way forward across the grass towards the fire. Wilson trembled to look upon it. Wolfgang and Wesley witnessed this as well, for one howled in fear and the other jumped a good foot in the air, a silent scream on his lips.

Only then did Willow seem to notice what was wrong. With the bravery of a bull, she charged, jumping and stomping on the shadow hand. It recoiled and withdrew, slithering back into the darkness. "And stay out!" Willow cried. Without missing a beat, she rounded on Wilson again, this time grabbing him by the collar. "I'm on to you. Tell me what you know!"

Even if he had decided to give in to his sins and confess his supposed crimes, there were too many shadowy beasts lurking in their camp for Wilson to make any sort of intelligible response. Some were small and bird-like, others were as overgrown crabs the size of cabins. In his inconsolable state he threw his arms around Willow for protection. Wolfgang and Wesley seemed to believe this was the appropriate course of action and came to wrap themselves around her as well.

"Agh—wh—b—ip!—GET OFF!"

Something _whooshed_ behind them. Before Wilson could turn to see it, he heard a high, blood-curdling scream, and a pair of sinister red eyes. From far away, he could hear that evil laugh echo.

 _Maxwell!_

And that was the last thing he remembered, right before something struck him upon the head.


	5. A Curious Abomination of Man, Machine

Chapter Five: A Curious Abomination of Man, Machine, and Magic Subjects Our Friends to the Elements

 _Day 5. Found Wilson's stupid handbook. Has chicken scratch writing. Uses short hand like he's too cool for pronouns or something. Sounds stupid._

 _Got himself knocked out last night by a shadow monster. He should have listened to Willow. But nooo. 'I'm a weedy scientist guy, blah-blah.' He will read this later and realize he is a complete chump._

 _And for the record, I do not like my food charred, jerk face!_

"I probably deserve that," Wilson conceded, rubbing the back of his head while reading Willow's entry. She had her arms crossed and was turned slightly away from him, palpable anger roiling off of her.

Thinking he meant the tender spot on his head, she said bitterly, "I don't know how that thing got you. The fire was blazing. The shadows don't like that."

"Fire make flame lady feel safe," Wolfgang offered. "Help monsters see scared man."

Wesley pointed at the fire, pointed at Willow, and began to twirl gaily.

"Did all of you see those things?" Wilson asked, each of them nodded. The eyes, the shadowy figures, the claws that reached forth...Wilson shuddered. "I believe the fire gives you some measure of control, Willow, for your love of it. The rest of us gentlemen..."

She scowled at him. "Let's go find some breakfast. Food might make you guys less crazy."

"Is hungry!" said Wolfgang in agreement.

As they broke camp, Wilson paused to gaze at the ring. Would holding it drive him further down into the bowels of insanity? Surely the otherworldly creatures did not want him in possession of the very thing that would take him away from their land? But no, looking upon it made him no less frazzled than looking at the trees around them. He slung the ring over his shoulder. He would hold on to it until he could find a way to reconstruct the door They had told him to and undo their evil work.

As they walked, Willow resolutely ignored her companions, trekking ahead to avoid having to look or talk to them. As the hour rolled by, however, she seemed to relent. Eventually she came back to walk at Wilson's side. "Last night you said you thought that ring could bring us back home. Why do you think that?"

Quick on his feet, Wilson replied, "It was part of my research in the theory of everything. Do you see the way the ring is sectioned off? Each chapter is meant to trap and confine quantum wavelengths and synthesize them, opening doors to different realities." He waited to see if she would rebuke this, but she appeared to believe he used the appropriate number of unfamiliar words to sound truthful.

"So, what? Do we just give it some electricity and jump through the hoop?"

"Not quite. I believe it will need to be combined with other components to make a door. A quantum harmonizer will not be enough to send four people through a dimension."

"Hm. Okay. I'll trust you on this one. But not on anything else! I'll help you put this door together if it means we can all go home."

"Mighty Wolfgang help smart man and flame lady!" The strong-man beat a fist on his chest, though with much less gusto than when he had stolen the tall birds' unborn children to feast on.

Wesley began to tap dance.

With some discussion and disgruntlement, our motley crew finally crept forth from the forest and travelled into the lush plain, all wary of tall bird pursuers, though none were spotted. After much searching, breakfast was gathered, a conglomeration of roots, fruits, and shoots. Some tasted quite queer, while other things were quite familiar, such as the orange root that tasted distinctly like a carrot. Wolfgang ate most of the food while Wesley constructed a miniature statue of David with a pile of nearby rocks and the questionably edible grey clump Willow had pulled from the ground.

With that order of business concluded, Wilson brought it to light that some form of shelter was still of absolute necessity. With nothing to chop down trees and no way to make a tent, the four companions collected bundles of tall grass in which to weave together into a tarp of sorts. Each had just collected his or her umpteenth bundle of grass when a fat droplet splashed down upon Wilson's crown.

It was with great apprehension that Wilson looked up into the sky. Distended grey clouds crawled overhead, their contents so great that the rain began to fall as if from a bucket overflowed. Wilson held handfuls of grass above his head and ran for his friends.

"We must head back to the forest!" he urged. "If we remain in the open, we will be washed away in the deluge!"

They wordlessly agreed and made haste, rushing back to safety. Mid-journey, Wesley stopped dead in his tracks, animatedly pointing at something in the distance. A few dozen yards away was a cloaked figure, hunching over a pile of metal gathered on a small boulder, seeming to be reading from a book.

"What's that crazy guy doing?" Willow snapped.

"Quick, let us introduce ourselves to this stranger," said Wilson, "who may know of a suitable place to take shelter from the rain."

They rushed forth, rain now seeping through their underwear. When they reached the mysterious person, she turned on them, severe face and square frames unmistakable.

"Madam Wickerbottom?!" cried Wilson.

The woman peered down her nose at Wilson as if scrutinizing a detestable plate of food, not in the least surprised or relieved to see a familiar face. "Wilson Higgsbury. The generalist." She added this identifier as if to avoid confusion of other, better Wilson Higgsburys that may have been about.

Madam Wickerbottom was—or had been, for all Wilson knew—the Head Librarian at the London Library, the most prestigious independent hose of knowledge, for as long as Wilson could remember. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if he was told she had been working there long before he was born. Not only was she a curator for the books, but she collaborated with professors across the city and published their works as well. All the colleges in London knew her, and when those colleges would do business with the library, their students would work directly with her. She knew which books one needed within five minutes of discussing one's field of study. It was also her penchant to decide whether or not one was worthy of her time, or, daresay, even hold her books.

Reader, I believe it goes without saying the nature of Madam Wickerbottom's opinion on our dear Wilson.

"You two know each other? Wow, what a coincidence," Willow said, nonplussed. "Can we get out of the rain now?!"

"I see you still keep...churlish...company," the librarian said to Wilson. She then turned back to Willow. "You have in fact interrupted the middle of an imperative process. You four are welcome to seek shelter from the rain elsewhere. You shall not find it here." She turned her back to them and stared down at the hunk of metal again, which upon inspection was clearly a robot, pieced together from spare parts by the looks of it, limp and inactive.

Willow scoffed. "The longer we wait, the harder it'll be to start a fire. C'mon!" Off she went, blades of grass flying from her overhead bundle. Wolfgang seemed keen on leaving as well, but waited for Wilson to do so first. Wesley, of course, was going nowhere without Wolfgang. On they were drenched.

"Madam Wickerbottom," Wilson began, "I know we've had our differences—"

She gave a dry laugh. "As usual, you presume much of situations in which you know very little. Differences are had between contemporaries; scorn is held by superiors for sycophants."

Wilson felt his neck flush and familiar heat rise through him. "Now, see here! We are in a disastrous predicament! Without cooperation, we place ourselves in a precarious position. It is best to abandon your...this...whatever it is you're doing and return to it at a more convenient time!"

"I quite agree," she intoned, "that it is best to disengage with whatever you are attempting and depart. A convenient time is not in the foreseeable future." She eyed the ring slung over his shoulder. For a moment he thought he saw a brief flash of recognition in her eyes, but instead of interrogating him, she let her lip curl and turned her attention back to her robot.

The nerve of her! Even here in this dangerous place, this pompous bibliognost would throw it in his face and attack his pride when there was need to band together. Wilson turned too and stormed off, his two friends in attendance, happy to leave her cavalier, patronizing, high-and-mighty fat head behind to be soaked in the rain and possibly develop pneumonia. He hoped her robot rusted over.

As they were leaving, he heard her speak, presumably reading from the book, and paused again to listen. Between the rain and their footsteps the words were muffled, and he thought he had heard...but that was nonsense, especially coming from her. Yet there it was.

Madam Wickerbottom was speaking an incantation in an alien language from the grimoire in her hand.

All at once Wilson felt frightened, worried, furious, awed and amazed. Before he could interrupt her again to investigate further, a bolt of lightning shot down and struck Wesley, firing him through the air, hair on end, clothes faintly smoking.

It had happened astonishingly fast, so much so that neither remaining party member had the wherewithal to react. Both men stared at their fallen comrade crumpled in a heap on the flattened grass, as still as the robot Madam Wickerbottom had been overseeing.

"That was due to your interference," she informed them, matter-of-factually. She then re-read the passage, the sound coming from the back of the throat, punctuated by clicks and pops.

"CIRCUS FRIEND!" Wolfgang wailed, rushing over to Wesley, rolling him over and shaking him. From where Wilson stood, it was quite clear that he would not wake by being shaken. He was quite truly and irrevocably dead. "MEAN LADY KILL CIRCUS FRIEND!"

Wilson rounded on her. "You would cast aside human life so easily? To dabble with forces you know nothing of? You _ogre!_ " Wilson cast aside his bundle of grass and stormed up to her, hands outstretched, prepared to tear her asunder for what she had done so casually—

Another bolt of lightning struck. Wilson threw himself down, hands over his head, sure that this time he was the next victim of her indifferent malice. The thunder was strikingly loud, leaving a ringing and whirring in his ear. A...

Wilson looked up. The whirring was not in his ears. It was coming from the robot, glowing with energy and rising to its feet.

"W X DASH SEVEN EIGHT ONLINE. SYSTEM OVERLOAD."

It spoke in inhuman monotone, the only indication it was speaking from a light that flashed with each syllable from within a stationary square mouth. It extended its tube limbs until it towered over Wickerbottom and Wilson, black eyes reflecting their image, two tiny people cowering before a gigantic conqueror.

"ORGANICS DETECTED. ENGAGING TERMINATION PROTOCOL."

"I brought you life!" Wickerbottom cried, raising up her grimoire. "I command you to cease your activity and await my order!"

It gave a series of blunt tones like a record caught jumping in the same place. "HOMO SAPIENS ARE STUPID." It swung down at her.

Wilson rose up in time to pull her out of the way. Its closed fist slammed into the ground, leaving a small crater behind. Before it could throw another swing, Wickerbottom was off and running, book tucked under her bony arm. So, too, did Wilson run. Wolfgang abandoned the body of his friend in the fright of seeing the revived steel abomination.

Wilson had hoped they would regroup in the forest with Willow, but upon looking back had realized they all had run in different directions. He called out all their names, including Madam Wickerbottom's, to no avail. He ran and ran until he could run no more, then sat down beneath a tree to wait out the rain, friendless. Worry gripped his heart in a steel vise, presentiment that he and his fellows would not be reunited, that the machine Madam Wickerbottom had given life to would find them all and kill them, one by one. Wickerbottom...

Not only did he have the mystery to solve about how Madam Wickerbottom was here, and how all of them were connected to this demon world, but now the reality of _magic_ was thrown into the mix. There was no doubt: the lady had read a spell from her book and summoned forth a storm with which to bring that robot to life, thereby killing an innocent man in the process. Where had she found the book? How did she know how to read it? And why did she wish to animate it?

Wilson only succeeded in asking more questions for himself rather than finding any answers by the time the rain ceased. Alone, chilled, and brooding, he set off down another forest path in a pointless search of his friends, shadows dancing between the trees.


	6. In Light of Our Friends' Separation, Our

Chapter Six: In Light of Our Friends' Separation, Our Scientist Comes to Know Darkness and Solitude

Night had not completely fallen yet, but Wilson's hopes had. Isolated afresh for the first time since he had arrived in this strange and terrible world, he traipsed through the forest without any inkling as to where he was going or if his acquaintances had been on his route as well. He had not realized how attached he was to his band of misfits until they were gone (and in one case, dead). Had Wolfgang been here, he would have found enough food for ten men, which would have been enough for seven portions to himself and one portion apiece to the rest. Willow would have started a more than sufficient night fire by now and protected them from the night's horrors. And Wesley would have made shadow puppets by its light, entertaining them all with his enigmatic showmanship. The poor chap.

All of this was quickly forgotten when a spider walked across his path.

With an ungentlemanly noise and a half-uttered curse, Wilson jumped back several feet and waved his straw torch out before him, hoping to deter the creature from advancing farther. For that is what this spider was: no mere insect, like one might expect to find weaving a web in the corner of the drawing room, but a monster the size of a doberman hound, with a set of fangs and countless eyes of several sizes, spreading all across its front like Argos of myth.

The spider seemed to recoil, gave a gurgling hiss that was meant to be threatening, and crab-walked off the path into the trees opposite from whence it came. Wilson watched it go for as far as he could, torch held high, heart in his throat.

A chorus of hissing and gurgling shot out from somewhere in the dark forest beyond, bringing wind to Wilson's heels. As he ran he could not tell if any of the scuttling demons were trailing him, but he did not dare find out. Though the sight of the tall birds had frightened him, their threat did not distress him nearly as much as the abomination he had just witnessed.

Soon the trees came to an end, splitting off from the path like an opening curtain to a stage, in which Wilson found himself wandering into a graveyard.

He gave his head a shake and squinted, sure that he must be seeing things. Surely not! How in His Name would there be grave markers in a world apart from His own? Alas, there they lay, with inscriptions and engravings. Human hands must have been at work in this world. Perhaps there was a town nearby! But how long could people have been coming to this place? Had they ever returned to their own world? And...were any left alive?

Wilson approached the nearest headstone. _Wilhelmina Schwartzmann_ was written across the top, with no epitaph. But _Warrick_ without a surname was immortalized with _Here lies what's left of a tasty old fool_. As Wilson approached the third headstone, which bared what looked like an unnervingly familiar name, he heard a girl's voice.

"You needn't be afraid. You can come out."

Wilson searched his surroundings for the speaker, but found no one. Gravestone forgotten, he crossed the yard in search of her.

A petite blonde around Willow's age was sitting atop one of the headstones farther on. She wore a pink dress and a vibrant red flower in her wavy hair. Jubilant as she appeared, she faced Wilson with a rather glum expression.

"Greetings," she said, voice high, soft, and with an air of mourning. "It is strange to meet another human here. I thought I was the only one." By the sounds of it, she hadn't been beside herself with grief over the idea preceeding Wilson's appearance.

"What are you doing here, miss?" Wilson implored. "Night will fall soon. You have no light source!"

"I haven't the need for light just yet. Besides, you happened by at a most convenient time with your torch. There is a child in that grave over there who is too frightened to emerge into the darkness."

"A child? Where?"

The young woman pointed beyond. Wilson angled his torch to get a better look. An open grave at the foot of a headstone came into view. There was a swift movement of someone—or something—ducking beneath the edge to remain hidden from view.

"The child is not accustomed to people any longer," she explained.

Wilson stood on his toes for a better look, but failed to achieve one. "' _Any longer_ '?"

"Go away!" The voice came from within the grave and was that of a boy's, by Wilson's best guess.

There was a noise from behind. Wilson spun to confront the disturbance, but found nothing beyond the minimal radius his torch offered.

"The spiders are growing bold in darkness," the woman said.

A pair of glowing white eyes appeared on the edge of Wilson's fire. They were joined by another, and yet another, until a line of a dozen or more beastly spiders advanced to the edge of his circle of light. Many fangs gleamed. He didn't have to be a remarkable scientist to estimate how easily these hellish arachnids could devour a grown man.

"Death comes to us in many ways." The young lady hopped off of the headstone and stood by Wilson, dispassionate. "On wings, on claws, on...spindly legs."

One of the spiders growled, a low, menacing, gagging sound. Another advanced, flexing its forelegs. Wilson stepped back, positively shaking with fright.

"Hey!" the boy called from somewhere in the darkness.

Something darted past Wilson and the woman in the dark. The spiders, eyesight ostensibly sensitive to light, followed the movement in the pitch black, all dropping their guard and retracting. From somewhere within the clutter of spiders came a disquieting purr. Hesitantly, the spiders departed, pursuing a less vulnerable, more intriguing subject.

With the threat removed, Wilson wiped his brow, leaning heavily on his knees. "What accursed things," he said, taking care to hide the tremble he felt in his throat.

"All life is accursed," his morose partner replied.

He stood to face her. Her skin was ghostly pale, and though she was quite pretty, a look of perpetual melancholy was set in her face like stone, giving her otherwise enlightening appearance the impression of a ghastly ghost in skin.

"You are...quite all right, I presume?" Wilson asked hesitantly.

"Alive and well, unlike most, dear stranger."

"Ah, I forget myself. My name is Wilson P. Higgsbury." He doffed an invisible hat.

"Wendy Carter," she offered distantly, with a curtsey. "I had been speaking to the child named Webber, and had been making progress until your arrival."

"Oh. I, er...my apologies. Is he...is he quite skittish?" Wilson focused his attention on the grave beyond. "Excuse me, young—(Webber did you say?)—Webber. There's no need to be afraid. I shall not bring you harm. My name is Wilson. I'm a renowned scientist. I can help you and Miss Wendy both."

"He is no longer there, sir," Wendy said gently, pointing to where the spiders had crowded.

Wilson followed her gesture, but saw no one and nothing. But wait—there, on the edge of the clearing, were the toes of a pair of black suede shoes. Wilson took a step forward to bring the boy into the light.

"Wait!" he said. Wilson stopped. "Don't come any closer."

Wilson felt a pang of pity for the poor boy. "We do not wish to harm you, Webber. Fear not. We'd best stick together, lest the spiders come back to feast on our flesh."

"The spiders like us, but they might try to eat you. You should get away from the forest."

"I do not wish to leave this place," Wendy said. "I feel I am where I finally belong. My sister feels at peace here as well."

Clearly, neither speaker was in his or her right mind. Wilson shook his head. "Dear boy, let us leave this place together, for it will be safer. Come, now." Wilson held out his hand.

"We're safer with the spiders," the boy replied.

"Pardon? Now you're simply talking in circles. You poor child, you must have lost your wit, isolated at night, alone in a dug-up grave. We shall bring you back to your senses."

"To be isolated is but a prelude to death," Wendy said.

"Please, miss, you're not helping—"

"We want you to leave now!" Webber said. "The spiders are coming back!"

"Yes! _We_ wish to leave!" Wilson said, exasperated. "Really, we must depart at once!" He stepped forward to lead the boy by the hand.

And stopped, screaming himself hoarse.

The black suede shoes he had seen at the edge of his light were not shoes. They were the hairy feet of a boy, whose body was covered in the same coarse black hair. The very same hair that covered the devilish spiders they had encountered moments before. Where his head should have been was the body of one of the aforementioned horrors, gleaming white eyes blinking in unison, fangs protruding from a gash of a mouth. The boy hissed like his spider kin and cowered, hairy human hands above his head.

"Please don't hurt us!" Webber cried over Wilson's scream. "We'll set the spiders on you!"

"Fear not, good sir," Wendy said calmly, touching Wilson on the shoulder and silencing him. "He is but a fearful, lonely child, trapped inside a curse."

Wilson sputtered, stammered and stuttered like a simpleton. The more he looked upon the boy Webber, the less he was perturbed. For surely a gruesome sight it was, but the fright and apprehension was clear on the boy's face. He was more frightened of Wilson than Wilson of he.

"He Above, child, how did you come to find yourself in this state?" Wilson enquired.

Webber seemed to let his guard down. The spider legs on either side of his face twitched spasmodically. "A spider ate me. That magic man told me that he could bring me back to life but that jerk tricked us!"

"Who do you mean, this 'magic man'? And who do you mean by 'us'?"

"We don't know his name," Webber said dejectedly. "He talked to me a lot when I was sick. He wanted to help me. I thought he was an angel but he's just a dirty, good for nothing demon!" Webber let loose a spiders' hiss. "Now we're stuck together." He placed his hands on either side of his head.

By the sounds of it, the trickster had offered both Webber and Wilson things they most desired in exchange for their imprisonment here. Each person trapped must have received similar offers. What could Maxwell's plan be?

"Perhaps we should continue this conversation elsewhere," Wendy said, for the glowing eyes and skittering legs had returned to them.

Wilson brandished his torch. "Back! Back, foul fiends!" Though he threw his torch this way and that, the spiders crept forward as one, not the least bit threatened by his alpha male antics. Webber shrunk back within their ranks.

"We can't hold them back anymore," the boy said, shrinking into the darkness. "We're sorry!"

"Webber! Now, please, this is not the time to lose heart!" Wilson kicked loose dirt at an approaching spider, backing himself into a headstone.

Wendy stepped forward, something clutched lightly in her hand, delivering an expeditious kick to the spider, lobbing it through the air as a football with legs. The other spiders took offence to this, readying their swift attack upon the newest offender.

"A fitting place to meet your end," she said to the spiders ethereally, holding her hand behind her back.

For all the wondrous and horrid things Wilson had witnessed in his last few days, he was further subjected to the unbelievable, driving him further away from his sanity. From Wendy's hand, foggy, milky tendrils snaked forth and culminated above her in the form of a girl. A younger version of her, in fact. The entity was misty blue through and through, save for the identical blood-red flower in full bloom woven into her hair at her temple. Where Wendy looked withdrawn from her current predicament, the ghost above her looked disgusted, the face twisting into a mask of fury as it swooped down upon the horde.

Wendy's ghost offered an ominous glow, and from its light Wilson witnessed spiders flying through the air as if launched from a cannon. To say it was _deus ex machina_ was to suggest a god would allow such an unimaginable consternation to arise from among its subjects. While the ghost occupied a good share of the clutter, a handful of spiders advanced on Wendy and Wilson. The latter was distraught with shock, while the former was delivering infinitesimal damage by way of stomps and kicks to her assailants.

The spiders pursuing Wilson drew closer. With a death grip on his dying torch he smacked them in their mismatched eyes over and over again, failing to deal significant harm but succeeding in confounding them.

The trio seemed to be holding their own, driving back enemy forces and holding a distinct line, until one leapt through the air and attached itself to Wilson's forearm, hard as a vise.

A most ignominious howl rent the night air as Wilson threw his arm this way and that, trying to disengage the offending spider. He then threw himself into the dirt and rolled about as if to put a fire out on his coattails (though, to be honest, most captivated audience, the way he was flailing, he looked more like swine than alarmed man).

In the midst of all his tumbling, Wilson managed to set the spider aflame with his torch, and Wilson's arm released from its steel grip. It sped away frantically, colliding with other spiders and setting fire to them as well. Wilson rose to his feet in a berserk rage, roaring and flinging himself into the flaming foray with Wendy and her ghost.

The battle lasted hours. More bites were delivered, more swift kicks dealt. Burns were had by both parties. Whenever it looked as if the trio might vanquish the vermin, a fresh wave of spiders would spring upon them, providing more fodder for the fire. When at last the long night had ended and the first tinge of morning light filled the world, the last of the spiders had been smote. Their crisp corpses littered the graveyard. Appendages lay across tombstones, blood seeped into the dirt, silk was shot in every direction. Some of the bodies were smoking, giving off a perilous odour. It was a gruesome sight, one that reminded Wilson of his father's descriptions of the battle of Vimy Ridge, except less human casualties and more fantastical insects. Covered in dirt, blood, and spider spit, Wilson watched as the ghost child faded away, waving good-bye to Wendy as she disappeared. The red flower from the apparition seemed to wither as it descended into Wendy's delicate outstretched palm.

"Abigail will need rest before she can come play again," Wendy told them. "I wish we could be together all the time..."

"I, er...thank you, Miss Wendy, for fighting alongside me." Wilson tried to sound grateful despite his unease for her spectre.

"Was that your sister?" Webber asked.

Wilson yelped and jumped. He had completely forgotten about the execrable child-monster, who had hidden in the shadows. He was prepared to admonish the boy, when Wendy spoke.

"Yes, my sweet Abigail. She...died when we were young." She didn't seem the least bit upset that Webber had left them to their doom throughout the night, and so Wilson decided to drop his grudge, however reluctant he was to do so.

Wendy cradled the flower close before tucking it away carefully in the pocket of her skirts. "I know I presume overmuch of two fine gentlemen as yourselves, whom I have only just met, but I must ask of you this favour: Will you join me in finding a way to resurrect Abigail from the land of the dead? It is the reason I find myself in this strange world, and I fear I cannot go it alone."

Wilson highly doubted there was any way to bring back the dead, but considering all he had experienced in the past three days, he supposed he should not have placed doubts in anything, not in this place. That being said, it would be wasteful of his time to pursue exploits of a phantasmic nature, when the prospect of home was ever so imperative. If he could redirect her pursuits...make her think she was ever closer to reviving her long lost sister...

"As it so happens, my lady, I believe I might have just the very tool to help in your quest," Wilson said, fingers crossed behind his back. He took the ring off his shoulder and held it before him. "This is an energy synthesizer, meant to draw different planes of existence into one. If it can be combined with other components, I believe we can make a device to turn your, er...intangible sister corporeal. We need only find the remaining such devices somewhere in this world."

"How fortuitous that we should meet. You are truly a gracious gentleman, Mr Higgsbury." She sounded only slightly put-out, compared to her usual gloom.

Wilson gave her a smile and a bow, burying the niggling sense that he should not have lied to her.

"I want to be a real boy!" Webber exclaimed, a hideous attempt at a fang-filled smile breaking his face in two.

"Fear not, dear Webber," Wendy said, patting his head as Wilson's smile turned sour, "we shall find a way to free you from the bonds of this life. Sweet release will be yours."

Taking this to mean he would be separated from his hexapedal host, Webber's garish smile broadened.


	7. A Discussion of Spacetime Creates a New

_A/N: Why is Wendy an adult and not a child, you might ask? The answer to that mystery is founded in small clues throughout the story. Will our adventurers discover the connections? Are there even any connections between them? Read on to find out in further adventures of THE DOOR WITH A FACE!_

* * *

Chapter Seven: A Discussion of Spacetime Creates a New Conundrum and Leads to Drastic Actions

With the remaining grass Wilson had managed to salvage from the day previous, Webber had woven a series of traps in which to capture rabbits (which, upon closer inspection, only somewhat resembled a rabbit, and strangely looked like an insect) and had secured a half score of them. Wendy offered to help prepare the game for eating. As she killed each one she cooed softly to them, and at one point Wilson heard her sigh like a girl might in blissful courtship as she wrung the neck of a poor rodent. Though it took some time, eventually a fire was built, a spit fashioned, and a gratifying lunch served.

"My father was a lot like you, mister," Webber said through a mouthful of rabbit meat. Wilson avoided looking at him, for the sight of the boy shoving food into his mouth with his pincers was more than the man could tolerate. "He was a practising chemist. I was allowed to help him in experiments sometimes. He was a really smart scientist, just like you!"

Wilson chuckled nervously. "Thank you. You're too kind."

"Please, tell us more about your family," Wendy asked the boy.

"Well...we lived in a cottage on the coast, just between England and Scotland, close to my grandpa. He taught me all sorts of things. He took me fishing and hunting—we did a bunch of stuff. One time we even got into a fight! Grandpa had all his teeth knocked out." Webber laughed, and for all he was a hideous creature, it was a sweet, innocent sound.

Wendy placed a hand on his shoulder. "How did you die, Webber?"

Wilson was taken aback. Not only was the question fundamentally incorrect—Webber was alive and...well, he was alive—but it seemed rude as well, to ask a boy a weighty, personal question, if he had in fact died.

The spiders' legs on either side of Webber's face slowly curled in as his shoulders sank. "I don't know what I was sick with. Father kept trying to make medicine for me, but nothing ever worked. He even built some machines, but they didn't do anything either. Then one day the magic man started talking to me, only at nighttime. He told me he could cure me, make me better, and he'd show my parents how. Father came home one day with a special book he said he had found to help me.

"He and Mother stood by my bed and read from it. Shadows started swirling around the room, and then..." He scowled. "Then a spider burst out of the book and landed on my bed. A big one. _This_ one." Webber pointed at his head. "When we woke up we were here. We hate that magic guy."

An unfamiliar feeling clutched at Wilson's chest. He placed a hand over his heart and the other on Webber's free shoulder.

"A fate much worse than death," Wendy said.

"You poor child," Wilson said.

"We've had spider friends for a long time, but it's been an even longer time since we've had people friends." Webber smiled up at the two of them.

Wilson furrowed his brow. "How long has that been, would you say?"

"I've gone through four winters here already—"

" _Four_ winters?!" Wilson cried in dismay. He had barely scratched through the week! How did this child trapped within a horror keep his wits about him through _four winters_?

"What year was it before you got here?" Webber asked.

"What year was it when you left?" Wilson countered.

"I don't remember, I was only eight..."

"Time is but a place you occupy until existence is snatched from you by He Above," Wendy said, unhelpful.

Wilson gasped and let go of Webber's shoulder, gazing upwards at the heavens. Her words struck a cord within him. Time was of the essence! Who knew how much time passed at home while they toiled away in this Limbo land? Mere minutes may have gone by the time he rebuilt his door, or...Malthus's theorem may have reached its inevitable conclusion! The human race could be very well extinct already!

"Great Scott!" he cried, knotting his fists in his unruly hair. "Einstein's theory of relativity in practice! I had not considered it before, but of course we would observe time differently here! But...my goodness...my calculations, I'll have to..."

"Did we break him?" Webber said. Wilson had taken to bumbling and walking in circles.

"It does not do to dwell on what is or could be," Wendy said gently, resting her hand on Wilson's shoulder when he passed her. He paused and ceased his drivel. "We are chained in the present and must act accordingly until we are released from those accursed bonds."

"Yes...yes, quite right," Wilson said, though not appearing entirely at ease. "Well, then. Chop chop! Let's get a move on! We are wasting daylight!" He claimed the last roast rabbit, helped Wendy smother the fire (thinking on what Willow would have had to say about that), and led the party onward, in search of more parts for the door. It was imperative to build it, post-haste!

They came across a marshland with a collection of ponds in which they indulged their thirst, drinking heartily until a troop of toad-like creatures emerged from the inky depths to fight them off their territory. Aggressive and alarmingly fast for being the size of lapdogs, the toads successfully drove the intruders out, who then wandered farther until they found a campsite.

"Hey, look at this!" Webber called, bounding up to a curious contraption. It had no apparent function but displayed a good number of gears, switches and buttons. Attached by wires was a tall, misshapen rod, standing at least eleven feet tall, which appeared to be beaten gold. Wilson studied it for a time while Webber played with the knobs and levers.

"My father made things like this all the time!" he said, nostalgic. His smile faded and he looked at Wilson with what he supposed was meant to be doe eyes, but instead looked like the crazed eyes of a monster in blood lust. As Wilson recoiled slightly, Webber asked, "Do you think he might be here somewhere?"

"Well, it isn't entirely impossible that he would be." He took a surreptitious step back as to avoid Webber's twitching spiders' legs.

"Maybe my parents came here too when they tried to make me better!" He cried. "Maybe they were also eaten by spiders!"

Wilson was far beyond denying the possibility of such far-fetched theories. "Perhaps," was all he had to offer.

The curious pair toyed with the machine awhile while Wendy sat by the blackened fire pit and spoke softly to her sister's flower. Wilson determined the hammered rod was meant to harness electricity and give power to the machine, but as to the purpose of the machine itself, he could not say.

Upon remembering the crisis of time, Wilson eventually hurried his two new friends onward, pressing on a bit faster when he began to see members of the shadow realm lurking in the distance. Midday drifted into mid-afternoon, and mid-afternoon into early evening, when at last they came across something to give them fearful pause.

They stared at it from a safe distance. "What is it?" Wendy asked.

"I do not know," Wilson answered.

"I've seen these before, but never went near them," Webber said. "They're all over, but all really far apart."

Wendy boldly stepped forward. "Let us take a closer look."

"Take care, Miss Wendy," Wilson said. They toed forward towards the roiling mound in the earth. When they were but a few paces away, it opened wide, revealing rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth. Webber and Wilson screamed, jumping back; Wendy got down on hands and knees to peer into its mouth.

It appeared as a creature living inside the ground, waiting to swallow unsuspecting passersby whole. It reminded Wilson of the terrifying _Eunice aphroditois_ , or the genus _Ummidia_ , and even conjured images of an evolved hybrid of both that lived embedded in the ground. Wendy poked one of its teeth.

"It is flimsy," Wendy said. She stuck her arm down in the mouth, drawing a whimper from Wilson. The mouth gave a gurgling sound like a stomach famished, and to his horror Wilson realized Wendy was stroking it and it was purring.

"A sentient abyss," she said. "An open door to escape." She withdrew her arm and stared into the darkness. Without warning she pitched forward, headfirst, and fell into the mouth.

"Wendy!" both Webber and Wilson cried. They rushed forward as the mouth snapped shut and distinctively swallowed her. It opened again as they approached. A repugnant odour struck them as they leaned over the cavity and peered down. Wendy was not to be seen.

"Oh, no! Not my only friend!" Webber cried. Vexation took hold of Wilson briefly, but it was quickly forgotten when Webber shouted, "I'm coming, Wendy!" and threw himself into the hole as well.

Wilson yelled in dismay as his second companion was swallowed whole. The mouth opened yet again, welcoming a third meal to simply fall into its trap. He scrambled back from the mouth. Did he just witness the careless suicide of two hopeless souls? Could he have prevented it? Was this also his guilt to bear? Oh, wretched ignoramuses! To throw away precious life so carelessly! Once again, Wilson found himself alone, and as much as he prized himself on being a self-sufficient academic, he knew he required the assistance of others (dunderheads as they may have been) to succeed in practical applications of survival.

Should he throw himself in as well? Life would be more misery than it was worth at this rate. Better to end it now than to suffer through a time-warped dimension alone. He had lost all his friends, both here and in the real world; he had put the stopper in his career at the university with those ethically questionable data sets; his mother was dead and his father estranged; and he simply had nothing to look forward to, even if he did make it out of this hell.

"Farewell, cruel plane of existence!" Wilson said, throat tight and nose burning. Perhaps Wendy's philosophy was right: only in death would anyone find sweet peace. With a dramatic flourish, Wilson walked to the mouth, pulling the ring closer up his shoulder, and stepped into the hole as if stepping off a plank.

Panic seized him as darkness closed in and the air thinned considerably. He was tossed, turned, squashed, folded, pulled and prodded. Had he the wherewithal to scream, he would have, but even breathing was a laborious task he could not manage in his state. The tearing of teeth on flesh never came. The burning of stomach acid never seared him. Death did not come for him today.

The sensation of falling turned into the sensation of rising, and as quickly as he plummeted he was shot upwards once more, sunlight flooding his sight.

Wilson shot out in an arc into the cool, open, breathable air. He did a cartwheel in mid-air and landed awkwardly on his rump, tumbling through the grass. The ring flew askew and landed a few feet away. Gingerly, he sat up, wiping slime off his face and mouth. When he regained his bearings, he looked about. There, he found Wendy and Webber sitting side-by-side, watching him curiously, and behind them stood a very familiar face, holding a balloon and frowning.

The colour drained from Wilson as if he had seen a ghost. Except that this was not a ghost, as he had now observed what a true ghost looked like, and Wesley was, by all observable variables, very much alive.

"Wesley?! How? But you—but I—you were dead!" Wilson cried, the trepidation of his wormhole travel put behind him in light of the apparent resurrection of a dead friend.

Wesley windmilled his arms, then began to manipulate the balloon in his hand into the shape of a poodle.

"This is your friend from the afterlife?" Wendy asked, intrigued. "Then there _is_ a sure way to raise the dead in this world. This is most wonderful news. May I ask, good sir, how it is you came to find yourself amongst the living again?"

Wesley offered her the poodle and began to crab walk, hands pressed against an invisible prison, desperately trying to find a way out.

"He never speaks, nor does he make sense," Wilson said, carefully standing. He glanced back at the wormhole. "Let's never use those things again." He chose not to divulge to them his resignation to suicide; if he did not tell them, he could bury his momentary lapse of reason.

"Very well. Perhaps your acquaintance would care to show us how he came to revive himself?"

Wesley stopped, used his fingers to spread his lips into a smile, then began to trot off in unfamiliar territory.

Wilson's two new companions followed him blindly. "Wait!" he cried. Webber looked back between him and Wesley, but seemed inclined to follow Wendy wherever she went. And Wendy, in general disregard for self-preservation or mistrust of strangers, followed Wesley without looking back.

Wilson retrieved the ring and rushed forth, attempting to subdue the pressing concerns that challenged the ragged remains of his sanity.


	8. The Wrath of the Deep Ones and Their

Chapter Eight: The Wrath of the Deep Ones and Their Master

 _Day 7: Separated from friends but have met others. One a spider-human child. Other bares ghost of sister with her. Wesley murdered by magic and resurrected. Going insane?_

 _Whereabouts unknown. Travelled via wormhole. Could be hundreds of miles from original location. Despondent feeling, like Dante travelling farther down into Hell to get back out again. Wesley leading us to resurrection device. Will there be another piece of the door there?_

Wilson began to sketch a design of the door. Those days in which he toiled over Maxwell's instructions were a blur; memory faded in and out like a poor radio signal. With the base came the frame, and suddenly he could quite clearly recall the design of the spark box, how it affected the polarity of the door's mechanisms. Above was the lever, built to withstand high energies conducive to alternate dimension bridging. Next, the ring, which would focus the fabric of spacetime by continuously spinning after activation. At the crown was the hybrid machine with organic material, the pinnacle of the door's power, the very thing that altered the fabric of time. Put together, Wilson noticed a strange look to the whole construction. He leaned back. Why...he could swear there was a man's face staring back at him, a most sinister smile upon his visage.

Wesley jumped right in front of him. He and the others had taken a stroll through a nearby copse of trees in which to attend to the more private matters of the morning. With them returned, Wilson quickly tucked his book away. He offered a nervous chuckle, as if he had been caught in something indecent, shameful in his acute burst of fear. "We ought to be on our way now. The sooner we see this resurrection tool, the better."

In response to Wilson's suggestion, Wesley bent double and began to sniff the ground around him in circles like a hound. He suddenly stood, rigid, pointed to the north, and led them onward.

Little discussion was had throughout the remainder of the day. They stopped only to eat and drink, and at one point ran when chased by a swarm of territorial wasps. When evening was setting in, they had found the edge of habitable land. The evergreen pines gave way to thorny, gnarled trees that held no life. Sparse grass faded into mud. The smell of rotten eggs accosted their olfactory senses. On Wesley skipped, beckoning them forward in earnest.

"This would not be an ideal place to camp for the night," Wilson said, carefully watching a patch of bubbling mud in the distance. An ominous croak rose up from somewhere in the marsh unseen.

"Dear Wesley, are we close to this resurrection tool?" Wendy asked, worry absent from her voice, unlike Wilson's.

Wesley spun on the spot, nodded vigorously with a broad smile, then continued on.

In the distance came a howl that echoed long and far. A small creature scuttled across their path, darting out of sight before they could get a good look at it. Not far off, the shadow creatures had stopped roaming aimlessly and had paused to stare at the party's progress. Wilson gulped.

"Perhaps we should attempt to find this tool in the morning," Wilson said, failing to keep the tremble from his voice.

Wesley slowly came to a halt, stood rigid as a board, and tumbled forward purposefully into the mud. When he sat up, he turned to them, appearing to be on the cusp of dismay, and shrugged.

"What do you mean?" Wilson demanded sternly. "That you've lost your way? That it is no longer here? That you wish to keep this secret for yourself? Answer me!"

Wesley cowered from Wilson, who had become so shrill his voice began to crack, like thin ice over a freezing pond.

"Uh...mister?" Webber pulled at the fringe of Wilson's vest. "We don't think he's gonna talk anytime soon."

"Quite right," Wendy said. "Do not turn on your allies when the ever vigilant foe of doom stands around you. Night approaches." She turned and looked off into the distance. "We should rest at that cabin for the eve."

Wilson turned to investigate. There, sure enough, was a dilapidated shack in the middle of the swamp, decrepit to the point where half the boards sunk into the ground on one side and a few boards had been dislodged on the other. More importantly, it was shelter, and it appeared to be uninhabited.

Wilson, disgruntled, forced himself into a facsimile of calm. Despite his eager search for shelter from the very beginning, what he looked upon was a very poor excuse of a home. Even his decrepit country home that had seen decades before it knew proper upkeep looked like Kensington Palace compared to the ramshackle mess of boards and mud they witnessed presently. "Very well. We may continue our search in the morning. This...derelict dump will do for now."

Wesley led the way by skipping across the bog until his feet were sucked into the ground by such overzealous movement, forcing him to trudge troll-like for the remainder. The others followed carefully, advancing slower than Wesley had, lest their feet were swallowed whole by the mud as well. When he reached the shack, Wesley turned and bowed low to them, almost as if to kiss the ground, then stood straight, smiling, despite the mud that still covered his face, to open the door for his friends.

Wilson and Webber screamed, and even Wendy murmured "Oh, my" in surprise.

In the doorway stood a hunchbacked humanoid, twice as tall as the average man, covered in green scales. A deformed head with cockeyes and an angler fish mouth topped the broad, rounded shoulders. Before Wesley could turn to see what perturbed the others so, the fish-man grabbed for Wesley and plunged down upon him, engulfing his head whole with its wide, grotesque mouth. Several other sea creatures swarmed out from behind the first as Wesley was devoured whole, making for the remaining three companions greedily.

"MERMS!" Webber shrieked. "RUN!"

Without further ado, friend and foe alike scattered. Though large, the formerly dubbed merms were quite nimble, blocking their prey at every turn; our heroes could not get far before being chased back towards the cabin. When at last Wendy was able to land a strike upon one, her sister burst forth from her flower, swooping into the foray with a silent battle cry. In his fright, Webber propelled ropes of silk from posterior into the face of his pursuer. Wilson ran amok like a decapitated fowl, ducking under legs and pivoting around backs, using his ring as a barrier between his head and any incoming jaws.

Just when it all seemed hopeless, Wilson ran a wider arc around the cabin, two mermen in chase, to find a large, purple tentacle shooting twenty feet into the air from the mud around them. It swung upon the trespassers laterally, and given that the monsters were much taller than he, they were swept away like inconsequential rubbish.

Relieved to be unburdened by flesh-eating fishmen, Wilson gave brief pause to catch his breath before the tentacle swooped down and crashed into the mud beside him with an almighty shake. Like a cockroach evading a stomping foot, he scampered about through the mud to avoid a thrash from the tentacle. "Really, now!" he cried desperately. It splashed about in the muck, looking much like a hound trying to catch the fox's scent. "I'll take your distorted beasts, fantastical monsters, and translucent demons, but being assaulted by a peculiar oddity of the orient?! I'll not have it!" It rose up and swooped down upon him again.

Wilson dodged this way and that until he finally found a way to surpass the tentacle without attracting any more beasts. Wendy and her spectral sister had slain several of them and Webber had found a similar swamp tentacle to do battle for him. One of the fallen foes had disintegrated as if composed of rotten meat; a single leg bone stood erect from the lump of flesh and muscle. As Wilson plucked the femur from the mass as if Excalibur from the stone, blood and sinew flew everywhere. A maddening cackle burst from his lungs and he charged after Wendy to assist her yet again in fervent battle.

When the ghost had cast down the last of the beasts, Wilson beckoned his remaining two companions forth to the ramshackle shed. The tentacles still swooped around their vicinity, sure that pedestrians were close at hand for a good pummelling, as they huddled inside the vacated ruin and shut the door. They were enclosed in near darkness, Abigail's eerie glow providing them with scant light, and all they could hear was each other's pants.

Until someone spoke.

"Well, well," said a deep, cold voice, unnervingly familiar. "You've ousted the Deep Ones. They've been here quite awhile, you know."

Wilson felt his insides tighten and twist. He spun in the dark but could see nothing, until a dazzling purple fire burst to life in the middle of the cabin, and in the heart of it a very tall, very thin man stood, wearing a stylish pinstripe suit with a rose pinned to his lapel. His chin was sharp, his eyes dark, and his toothy smirk consternating.

There was no mistaking him: he looked the same as his bust, right down to the billowing coattails. "Maxwell!" Wilson shouted in rage.

The man gave a bow. "The Great."

"You're the magic man!" Webber cried. "You took us away!"

Maxwell snickered, but there was no humour in it as he fixed Webber with his onyx stare. "I gave you all that which you desired, and now you're here for my amusement in exchange for those services."

" _Amusement_?!" Wilson tossed the femur at Maxwell. The bone sped across the room in the opposite direction, deflected by an imperceptible barrier.

Maxwell's grin was instantly replaced by a frightful scowl, his face darkening and voice booming, "Try that again and you won't like my next magic trick."

Webber cowered behind Wilson, who did his damnedest not to cower behind Wendy and her sister, both of who had maintained a look of mild curiosity through the entire encounter.

Maxwell resumed his cool composure and sneered at them. "While I was watching my world turn, I caught notice of four travellers parading about in my swamp. They walked right into the Deep Ones' territory. I thought, 'What gal! Now, these pawns deserve my attention.'" He produced a cigar out of thin air and began to puff on it. "So I thought I'd make an appearance to make our little game a bit more interesting."

"What game is it you speak of?" Wendy asked conversationally.

"Oh, just a little thing I like to call 'don't starve.'"

He chuckled darkly and took another puff of his cigar. As he blew out several smoke rings, triangles and squares, he said, "You see, all you must do is live. I give you what you need, and you do your best not to meet your doom, like all our fine fishy friends out there did. They've spent so long avoiding those tentacles—and were good at it too—but I guess they haven't seen any plump, juicy people in...oh, probably ever. It's enough to make even the best of us forget ourselves. But they lost and you won, which is why I want you to know: if you fine wanderers can survive long enough to find a way out of my world, I'll let you walk away. Scot-free. No strings attached. _Poof._ " He looked pointedly at Wilson's golden ring slung over his shoulder. Then he smiled wider than ever. Wilson shivered. "I think I'll step it up a notch from here."

With one last drag on his cigar, Maxwell blew out a billowing cloud of smoke, iniquitous in his laughter as the fire suddenly died out.

"Where is he?" Wilson muttered frantically. Since escaping the mermen, night had descended upon the world like a smother. Wind struck them and something swooped down from over the shack. A note so shrill filled the air that Wilson dropped to his knees with his ears covered. "Ah! Show yourself!"

Wendy struck something together, sparks flying everywhere. Discarded debris in the fire pit caught fire, and all at once the rushing ceased. By the scant light Wilson could see Webber huddle close to Wendy as her sister disappeared once more. Maxwell was nowhere to be seen. The delicate girl waved him forward. "We are safest from the dark in the light," she said sagely.

Wilson scuttled forth and sat beside them, knees drawn in and ring hugged tightly to his chest. Whatever had been making that noise could not have been far, waiting for the light of the fire to fade away into nothingness. For he was certain of that now, that Willow had been correct in assuming the only thing protecting them from what lived in the darkness was a night fire. They—Maxwell and his legion of shadow demons—lurked in the darkness, watching. Always watching.

"I have not heard from Maxwell the Great since my induction to this plane of existence," Wendy said softly. "He spoke to me on the spirit board and guided my planchette to tell me of ways in which to reunite with my Abigail, but I hadn't known him to take form and present himself to the likes of us mortals."

Wilson was prepared to rebuke her presumption to refer to Maxwell as anything godlike when Webber cut across him. "We haven't ever seen him either. He used to talk to me through grandpa's phonograph, but I never saw him in person."

The pair looked at Wilson, wedged between them, expectantly. But Wilson was not about to divulge his last meeting with Maxwell, not when there were more pressing matters at hand.

"Did you not hear his threat?" Wilson said, disconcerted. "This is a game to him! He behaves as a master of puppets, and we his marionettes! He intends to make our lives here more difficult for his enjoyment, so that he can watch us struggle while we...while we..."

A bemusing thought took Wilson over. He held the ring before him so that all three of them could gaze upon it and understand the same thing.

"Build a door home?" Webber said, reserving doubt.

"But is that truly what your ring will do?" Wendy challenged. "I thought you believed it to be a tool in which to resurrect the dead. To build a door home would be to ignore the reason in which I was brought here. My quest requires that I remain until my sister and I may share the Voice again."

"Well...maybe it does both?" Webber queried. "I died a long time ago, we think. Whatever Wilson might build could bring us back to life by bringing us home."

"Very good hypothesis, young Webber," Wilson said. "You might make the budding scientist yet."

Webber smiled, and Wilson tried to politely hold his horrendous gaze.

"Ours is not to make reply, nor to question why, but to do...or die," Wendy declared.

"Er...yes, quite," Wilson said. "Come, let us rest. Tomorrow presents a new challenge and a long road ahead. I shall take first watch."

Throughout the night he would stare at the ceiling, or spin to investigate a sudden and insignificant noise, but nothing and no one came for them. Though the shack smelled of rotting fish, it was a relief to have a wall standing between them and Them. Maxwell was watching...ever and always. And he was encouraging them to escape. He saw the harmonizer, he knew what it meant. Why would he willingly allow them to leave? Was this all, as he put it, simply a game? A contest of wit, will, and fortitude?

A modicum of sanity slowly began to return to Wilson, even though the macabre spider child was leaning against him to sleep, his spiders' legs twitching. The gentleman scientist squared his shoulders and narrowed his gaze as his former glory was revived, a phoenix from the ashes.

"Two can play at this game," he vowed.


	9. A Performer of Feats of the Mysterious

Chapter Nine: A Performer of Feats of the Mysterious for Entertainment and Edification

Dear reader, you might be wondering to yourself: who _is_ this magic man, this, arrogantly or rightfully so, self-proclaimed Maxwell the Great? Where did he originate? What manner of man, or demon, is he? Most importantly, to what end has he ensnared these apparent strangers in his world, and why were they themselves chosen?

Perhaps now is a felicitous moment in the story to diverge upon another course of history, which may perhaps shed light on some imperative queries...

At the dawn of the twentieth century, England was at war yet again with the Afrikaans in a stubborn attempt to expand the empire for Her Majesty and win control over the abundance of lucrative resources in the exotic lands of Africa. At the time, many young men across the country had volunteered for war in droves, and many citizens admired their courage, perseverance, and valour, for they reflected the tenacity, the endurance, and the glory of the Empire.

William Carter was not one of these admirable young men.

The unfortunate man we speak of now was a very tall, very thin bespectacled man with a remarkably large chin. Besotted with the mystical arts, William would often withdraw from society and seclude himself like an eccentric hermit to practice his craft and hone the skills necessary to dazzle and amaze those Londoners who remained. Alas, come the untimely death of Queen Victoria, and not long after, the end of the war, William had unsuccessfully founded an attractive stage show. No one was interested in something as foolish as magic tricks, not in times like these, not ever in such a proper state as England. The loan sharks were after him, business was bad, and his brother, Jack, bid him come to visit America, for a brighter day awaited entrepreneurs who ventured forth into the western frontier. The way forward was clear. William boarded a train to Liverpool one night, leaving his flat and all of his belongings behind, hoping to disappear completely, so to let his trail go cold and never have to look over his shoulder, wondering who might be after him to collect a debt long overdue.

On his way to board the vessel _Quest_ , of which he was several pennies short to pay the ticket for passage, he began to perform card tricks on the street, his worse-for-wear top hat placed before him so that appreciative spectators might leave their favour to help him on his journey. No one gave him any such gifts, let alone the time of day. With the ship about to embark in nary a half-hour and sans means to pay for the voyage (or a hot meal to fill his empty stomach), William had lost his lustre for card tricks, and had nearly given up all hope that he would be able to board the ship, when a small boy approached him.

"Excuse me, sir, are you a magician?"

William, surprised, intimated that he was indeed a magician.

"Would you be willing to perform for Mother and me?"

"Mother and _I_ , dear," an affable, handsome woman behind him corrected.

"Pardon, Mother and I?"

With a glad heart, for simply the request alone was all William needed to hear to lift his spirits, the magician let his hands fly as he performed his stage set with the most fervour he had ever done, watching the rapt boy's eyes sparkle with wonder and awe. _This_ is what William had pursued behind every flick of the wrist and sleight of hand. Heart soaring, he added a few new details to his performance, earning him gasps and smiles from his mesmerized spectators.

With the act done, William bowed low, and the boy and his mother applauded appreciatively. "That was a magnificent performance, sir! How did you do it?"

Of course, William told the boy that a magician never revealed his secrets.

"I wish to grow up to be a magician. I hope I can do the same spells you do some day. Mother, can we please pay the magician for his show?"

"It's _may_ we please, sweetheart."

"May we please? _Please_?"

The woman smiled adoringly at her son and collected her purse. "Why, of course." She dropped a handful of precious coins into William's hat and smiled at him warmly. "Thank you kindly, Mister...?"

Wishing to leave his past behind, William quickly invented his future. Something grand, something powerful; a name that meant none could deny his illustrious eminence. "Maxwell the Great," he said with a flourish.

"We will be sure to remember your dazzling spectacle, Maxwell," the woman replied. "Come along, now, dear, there's much to do today."

With more than enough money to purchase passage on _Quest_ , William left with mere seconds to spare to board. As the shores of England disappeared into the sunset, he gave a silent prayer to the woman and her son for his ticket to a new frontier. Surely the Americans appreciated stage performances more than the other stony, staunch, stoic English, who had scorned him for years, imploring him to join his countrymen in the glorious fight overseas. Surely, in this land, he would prosper.

During the journey into the West, William would keep his papers close at hand while performing magical tricks under the _sobriquet_ The Amazing Maxwell, lest anyone on board be a hired hand of one Mr. Witherstone, to whom he owed a great deal. Most of the crew and passengers seemed ignorant enough of his past dealings. Some would modestly turn their attention away, and reserve Christianly judgement for his inappropriate flaunt of magic. Others seemed to take mild interest in his magician's show when he would preform it above deck. Everyone seemed to accept William as Maxwell, a harmless soul on his way to a new adventure. Except for one passenger.

There was no telling what she watched him for, because it became quite clear soon enough that she took no enjoyment in his act. Old, shrivelled, dressed like a poor babushka from the Slavic East, with pale eyes that looked like foreboding fog, he was sure, at first, that she merely glowered at him for taking away the patronage she could have been receiving in her chipped mug. But with each passing hour, William was sure he saw something different in her stare. A glimpse of darkness, a flash of contempt, utter evil thinly veiled beneath the surface.

What had he done to trespass upon this woman so? This went beyond general reprove of harmless deception and illusion, for she seemed to stare at him as if to supersede his secrets, not of the magical kind, but of the personal, in the deepest, darkest part of his soul, by astute observation, unlike the others who could not bear to watch him for the shame of it. William thought it wise to approach her, but each time he thought the moment ripe to act upon this impulse, he would cower and withdraw. Eventually he ceased his show on deck and only performed in the canteen when the old woman was not present. Beyond that there was no danger and the journey passed without incident.

Finally the _Quest_ touched upon American soil in New York. William was able to pass his interview and medical inspection to enter the country, but just barely; though he was of good stock and admirable descent, his nervous nature rose suspicions to his purpose in He Above's good green America, earning him additional private discussions in cramped interrogation rooms. Once released, he took lodging in a small traveller's hostel near the docks and quickly set to work finding a stage in which to perform. It was not long before Bowery Hall accepted William and gave him a weekday matinee special. Due to a clerical error, "Maxwell the Great" was listed as his legal name and "William Carter" his stage name, which William did not discover until the posters were printed and the tickets sold. This was a blow to his budding mettle, and after a moderately successful first performance, attendance to William Carter's floundering show quickly dived, and once again William found himself unable to afford suitable residence and sustenance. It was London all over again, for Mr. Witherstone was able to track him down due to his stage name reflecting his Christened name, and had employed the most uncouth and unlearned henchmen to chase him down for repayment. Once again, William found himself in a perilous situation in which he was forced to flee.

Spiriting away to Grand Central Station, William traded some prized possessions that remained to him to earn a seat on a Sunset Lines train. However, he could not bear to part with his magical tools, as they were all that was left of who he was. His journey would take him as west as humanly possible, for at the end of the line was his loving brother, his wife, and his twin daughters, all of whom, he was assured, would welcome him with open arms, and give him one last chance at redemption.

This country was meant to be a dream come true for William after dreary, dribbling England, but he had found nothing but more solitude and solemness. Homeless, friendless, and penniless, he endured the hardest part of his life, stuffed in a coach with dozens of migrants, all with their own sad tale to boast of. All he had wished for was to be a successful enchanter. What he would not have done to receive the talents in which to captivate the world with stunning tricks...

As the train continued travelling over many days and nights, most passengers would retreat to the sleeper cars after hours. William, however, was only permitted into the coach car, given his financial limitations upon purchasing his ticket. Therefore he would bundle up his suit jacket as a pillow and curl up within an empty corner of the coach train, absurd-looking with his gangly limbs curled in like spiders' legs. It was late one night in Nevada when he suddenly awoke to find someone sitting across from him. Someone he had seen before.

She was as still and as frightening as a stone gargoyle. A lamp was still lit by their window, casting half her light in an eerie yellow glow, the other half in shadow. It was the very same woman from the _Quest_ a year prior, who would watch him with her harvest-moon eyes with a hatred unparalleled on the decks where he once performed. Her demonic stare pinned him in place, and like a child trying to sleep through fer of the dark, he closed his eyes again, trying very hard to pretend she was not there.

The poor man's reserve could only take so much. He opened his eyes, and, voice high and cracking, sweat pouring from every orifice, he meekly confronted her accosting glare, to which he may or may not have poorly worded a request that she cease her ill manners promptly.

The old woman did not say a word, but a devilish smile crossed her lips. William found himself losing his pitiful nerve quickly. Again, he addressed his grievances, this time with much less fervour, and again, she made no effort to convey her understanding of his accusations. Ah, but of course. This woman must be a travelling gypsy; what other manner of woman would find herself crossing the Atlantic on a boat only to steal away dishonestly upon trains (for he was most certain she had to have been dishonest) to cross another country?

She rose a finger to draw an invisible line from William's crown to his chin from across the way. "Magic?" she said, a husk of a whisper.

William hesitated. Then, deciding it would do to ease the tension, he withdrew his deck of cards from his travelling case and began to shuffle it. He performed a few minor tricks, then produced his top hat to pull cards that had previously been in the deck from within it. The old woman's evil smile had vanished and in its place was her standard glower. She drew another invisible line, this time horizontally across William's eyes, with some force. "Chaos. You are not belonging here!" She hissed at him.

That put an end to their interactions. William stowed away his props and turned as far away from her as his seat allowed, in the hopes to fall asleep and forget her presence. Of course, he could have sat in another seat in the compartment, but William was the sort of man who sought to stay within his rights as much as possible, and the idea of potentially provoking the conductor for sitting in a seat in which he did not purchase a ticket was more stressful than this delirious old woman. He had had enough of provoking others for things he owed and did not own to last him a lifetime.

Somehow security falsely draped across him like a gentle blanket, and he dozed off to sleep to the gentle rocking of the train like a babe in his mother's arms.

When he woke, moonlight streamed through the open window, bringing with it a welcome breeze to ward off the extreme Nevada summer heat, for the nights were not cooling as they ought to have been in the desert. William jolted upwards and straightened his hair and his dress unsuccessfully. The old woman had left. In her place on the seat was a dogeared tome, discoloured and neglected, lit by a narrowed beam of moonlight. The cover was a blue-grey, and bore upon it no markings. He opened the book, and on the front page was a title written in chicken scratch, as if by a man unaccustomed to writing the English alphabet.

 _Codex Umbra_

Codex Umbra...why, did that not translate from Latin? A book of shadow? The old woman must have left this. But what would a gypsy be doing with a grimoire such as this? Did she mean for it to fall into William's hands, and if so, why?

He turned the pages, but could barely read what was written within. From what he could tell, the markings upon the page were not from any alphabet he recognized. Were these hieroglyphs from a language he was ignorant of? Or were they merely the inventions of an imaginative mind, made to have no meaning but inspire wonder? As he browsed the pages, more and more labelled drawings appeared on the pages, and beneath them scrawled lines of this alien tongue. After much perusing of the tome, in which he began to suspect was an instructional book of arcane mysteries, he came across a blank page, which seemed to actively ripple as he watched it.

With an almighty screech of metal upon metal, William was thrown into the opposite wall of the compartment, his glasses shattering upon impact. Again he was thrown back to his original position to splay out across the wall. The world went topsy-turvy, and as William tumbled through the air, the world outside spinning, he filled his lungs with what he was sure to be his last breath to cry "HELP!" for, in his state of panic, he did not think to make his amends with He Above in one last confession to prepare his soul for the afterlife, but called out the one request that summarized his own appraisal of how he had led his life.

No sooner was he flung through the air that he was sitting once more, this time in the desert outside. He blinked, patted his chest, his head, his legs, but found no injury to cause alarm. Though he had lost his glasses, he could see the blurry outline of a closed book in front of him. Slowly, he reached for it, and held it in his hands. It was as though a current of electricity ran through it, for upon grasping the edges, he felt a surge of energy, like he held something undeniably powerful. Without a doubt, he was sure this thing had just saved his life. A divine being connected with the text had heard his cry and answered his summons.

A pitiful wail sounded from behind him. He looked about and gasped, taking He Above's name in vain.

The train in which he had inhabited not moments before had derailed and crumpled upon itself. Train cars were thrust into the air, thrown askew the track, and in some cases were compacted or torn apart. A fire had started in one car and the engine was all in a blaze by the crossing. There, where road met tracks, was the remains of a large waggon. Dead animals littered the path, barely stirring people along with them, and various discarded menagerie equipment strewn about from the impact.

Clutching the book under his arm, William rushed forth to help, coming across a short, slender young man dressed in a red and white striped unitard trying to extricate a rather large man from under part of the shattered waggon. Blood oozed from the trapped man's temple, but this appeared to leave him unfazed, for he fought with his counterpart to lift the wreckage from his chest. William charged in to assist, dropping the book on the ground beside the slight youth to help hoist the wrecked remains into the air. Together the three men successfully lifted the boards up, giving room for the trapped man to climb free.

William slipped beneath the wreck to press his back into the planks of wood. At this time he gave the young circus performer instruction to remove his friend. The young lad did so, red in the face as he helped the beefy brute to safety.

Before these men could complete their rescue, a herd of monkeys descended upon them like the wrath of the Hindu gods, biting, yanking, scratching and spitting. William held his ground, cognisant of the fact that if he tried to flee the savage simians, the boards would fall upon the large man's legs, thereby crippling him. When the primate around his neck released his nose and allowed him to look forward once more, William witnessed one of its brethren clutching the mysterious book. It opened to a random page and began to tear leafs of paper from the binding.

Giving a cry of barbarian rage, William waved his fist and pointed at the book, bidding the young man to relinquish it from the macaque's grasp. The performer attempted to do as William asked but was unsuccessful in reaching the creature. Murderous, William lunged forward and attempted to yank the book free from the vicious little imp.

The moonlight, the fires, and the monkeys' screeching desisted, smothered by an impenetrable darkness. Where once was a gathering of anthropoids was now a void field but for a broken fragment of a circus waggon, an empty cage, and a horrific train wreck.

In the morning, authorities from Mill City came to investigate the wreckage and assess the damage. There were no casualties beyond those circus creatures that had met a worse fate, but many circus employees and train passengers alike had suffered grievous injuries. Upon investigation with the conductor and the circus ring leader, it was discovered that only one person was missing, according to their records: one William Carter, a tall, timid Englishman on his way to San Francisco. A thorough questioning was conducted, but no leads established. Two circus performers were suspect in his disappearance, but one of them spoke no sense, having lost his wits in the crash, and the other had become resolutely mute, and either would not or could not utter a word on who this William Carter was or where he may have gone. As his trail grew colder, a search party was sent out, but the ringleader warned the police that his flock of dangerous monkeys had broken free of their cage and were now missing, posing a serious threat to those wandering the desert. The case was closed, and the true William Carter was not heard from again.

It might be interesting for you to learn, in fact, that no one, not even the conductor, knew of the old gypsy woman who had confronted William on the train, for there was no record nor memory of her. She too faded into obscurity, along with her purpose, her secret, and the ultimate conclusion of William's fate.

Alas, that fate is a tale yet in progress, to which we should return...


	10. A Most Trying Case of Morton's Fork

Chapter Ten: A Rather Trying Case of Morton's Fork

A single bird sang its morning song, suddenly alone in the forest. The air, crisper and colder than usual than the week past, had a different taste to it, a certain stillness the world had not experienced for many moons. Inconspicuously, a leaf gently broke away from its tree, drifting to the ground lazily, a moment of seemingly little consequence.

Then the sun was nary an inch over the horizon, casting a dark blue glow on the world, and Wilson rose to his feet in a hurry.

"The day spurns us!" he trumpeted. "We must make great haste, for who knows what vile plot Maxwell has concocted for us on this day!"

Webber stretched his arms and his many legs with a great, fanged yawn. "What time is it?"

"What time is it anywhere? Spacetime runs in relativity, that much you brought to my attention, young friend." Wilson pointed into his palm with finality. "The time is _now_!"

Wendy rose up from the ground in much a way one would expect Nosferatu to rise from his coffin. "Why is it you wish to revive us at this hour, Wilson?"

"Because," he said, opening the door, "I've had an epiphany about that machine we chanced upon yesterday, and we must return to it at once, to better make use of what little time we may have." 

Finishing off the remainder of their perishable goods, Wilson led them at a very brisk pace across the marsh path, back the way Wesley had led them. Webber looked back over his shoulder at the shack as it disappeared into the distance, tears in his milky white eyes. "Goodbye, Mister Wesley. I'm sorry about what happened to you."

"Oh, my. That's right," Wilson said. This was the first Wesley-death Wendy and Webber had experienced, and in the excitement they did not have time to pause and mourn his loss (as redundant as Wilson felt it to be). "Let us say a prayer for the departed. Wendy, do you have words you wish to share?"

"Blessed deceased, may you take comfort and find peace at He Above's side. Those that remain will remember your last moments fondly." Wilson grimaced at this grotesque declaration, for she was smiling serenely as she said them, but Webber, whose eyes were downcast, sniffed and said the appropriate observations with her.

Once respects had been made, Wilson was marching forth once more, grieving friends in tow. As they trekked, Wilson made observations of noticeable differences in their environment that had not been there before. Though he was certain that he had his wits about him, for no shadow demons lurked in the distance, dodging from cover like the slippery Hun in their trenches through the Western Front, he witnessed leaves turning to yellow and red in the trees, tiny woodland creatures gorging on sees and berries until their tiny bellies distended grotesquely, and a flock of birds flying in chevron formation headed due south.

"He Above," Wilson muttered. "I do believe winter is coming." Was this perhaps the work of Maxwell "stepping it up a notch"?

"There it is!" Webber said joyfully, skipping with excitement and pointing to an object in the distance.

"Good sight, my boy," Wilson said. This time, when Webber beamed at him, Wilson was not repulsed, but experienced something not unlike the expansion of joy in his chest upon a scientific breakthrough. _If I did not know any better_ , Wilson thought, _I am growing fond of this unfortunate freak of nature._

Wilson broke into a run in the last dozen yards to close the distance to the camp. He placed the ring on the ground to cradle his chin pensively in one hand as he studied the curious contraption.

Wilson followed the beaten copper wires from the tall misshapen rod to the machine, determining the connections, where the electricity went, what its function was. He opened all the compartments he could, studied the gears within, noted the mechanisms throughout, and jotted down notes in his journal as he went. Webber and Wendy hung back, quietly watching his progress at first. It was when Wilson's final bit of charcoal snapped and crumbled to his feet that the little boy slunk forward hesitantly, for Wilson was fuming like a kettle left too long on the stove, and turned one of the levers counterclockwise, something Wilson had never considered, and the machine gave a jerk and a groan of gears, shimmying and shaking with effort. Soon it came to a stop.

"How did you know how to do that?" Wilson said, an ounce sharper than he wished to.

"I didn't, you just hadn't tried it yet. I'm sorry." Webber cowered.

Wilson, unable to free his face of the frown this sleight against his pride had brought, turned his attention to the mechanisms being carried out, but soon the gears ceased their turning. Opening compartment after compartment slowly gave way to such a shattering realization that there was no way Webber could make him look the fool any longer.

"Wendy, would you be a dear and hand me one of those bones we lifted from the shack?" Without turning, Wilson held his hand out behind him to receive the desired object, much like a surgeon would ask a nurse for a scalpel in the middle of a procedure. He fed the femur into the longest compartment.

Voices began to whisper to him. Not as they had when the shadows lurked near, but whispers of his own psyche, knowledge of a forbidden nature obtained through dark means, instructing him on the finer uses of the machine. But of course! Why had he not seen it before? Using this knowledge, he turned the dials to different measurements with a degree of care reserved for life or death situations. Wilson reached for the lever, fingers twiddling, tongue emerging from the corner of his mouth, eyes bulging madly, and though he was confident he knew what would come next, a not so distant memory came to him of the last time he had reached for a lever so on a door he had built, and from the radio on the end table behind him, Maxwell's voice boomed—

"Do it!" Webber breathed, breath held with excitement.

Wilson bit down on his tongue involuntarily but only drew a little blood. Hand now shaking, he grabbed the handle and turned it as Webber had (but, of course, with just a bit more confidence, as if he had known all along that the handle indeed needed to be turned. Naturally).

This time when the machine churned, _thunk_ ed and whistled steam, it did so more smoothly, grinding the bone to dust as easily as if it were a biscuit. The bone descended into the machine, sinking from view most ominously. Once it was gone, the machine came to an abrupt halt, and the bone was sprung back out at Wilson, though it was now much shorter and carved into a sharp, double-edged dagger.

Wilson fumbled with the projected blade, as while he was quick witted, he was unfortunately cursed with the reflexes of a slow loris, and in his attempt to grab the haft, caught the blade instead, and cut a fine, shallow line into his palm. He dropped the knife and clutched his hand. Though the cut was superficial, the blood came quick.

Somewhere, in the not too distant east, a pair of creatures lifted their heads, ears perked, snouts raised high to sniff the tinny scent carried by the wind.

Several kilometres away at the camp, of course, our most interesting trio was unaware of this most foreboding event.

" _Wooow_." Webber stood by Wilson's side, looking from the crafted dagger to the machine that bore it. "It's so… _sciency_."

"Yes. Quite quaint," Wilson quipped, holding his pressed palms above his heart. Though he would not admit it, Webber's fascination with his creation—his alone, no untimely intervention by children far less intelligent than he—gave him a relieving sense of redemption.

"I shall hold on to the dagger, if there is no objection?" Wendy picked up the blade to examine its scarlet stains, eyes aglow.

"Can we make more?" Webber folded his hands together before him. " _Pleeeaaase_?"

Wilson checked his palm. The bleeding, at least for now, had ceased.

And the creatures, fuelled by a blood-lust so primal that nothing stood a chance in their path, took off at a sprint through the forest.

Woefully ignorant of their impending doom, Wilson said to Webber, "We no longer have bones. However…sticks, stones, leaves, straw—whatever you can find, let us pace it in the…the _science_ machine and see what we can concoct."

To and fro they went, collecting whatever they could find from around the camp and feeding it into the machine. With more thorough employment of his Forbidden Knowledge, Wilson tuned the machine to craft more complex items that would have required finer tools or more resources. Through unparalleled ingenuity, Wilson made for them a backpack made from woven grass, a spear of sharpened obsidian, a large black smithy hammer, and—

What stored energy the electric rod had had been utterly drained by their tinkering. In the middle of creating components fit to make a hammock, the science machine spluttered and coughed its last bout of steam, chugging to a halt.

"Blast," Wilson muttered.

"How do we get it going again? Do we wait for the next storm, or—"

Webber stopped and gasped, turning towards the forest.

Wendy and Wilson turned their attention towards the forest as well. "What is it that frightens you so?" the former asked.

"The puppies! I have to go find the spiders, they're the only way we'll be safe!" With that, Webber took off in the opposite direction, towards a different forest, spiders' legs bouncing with each pump of his tiny boys' legs.

"Wait, Webber! Wherever are you going?" Wilson gave an exasperated sigh and turned to Wendy, as if she would have an answer to his folly.

"He hears the wings of death approach," she said. "Or, more accurately, the galloping paws."

"Galloping—? Whatever do you mean, woman?" By now, Wilson's generous well of patience had been thoroughly depleted.

"There—" she pointed over his shoulder. "Our demise draws near."

Wilson turned.

First he felt an electric current spread over his skin instantly. All at once all his sympathetic system froze and consequently flared. The sight of two black wolves, the size of tigers, with hunched backs covered in quills as would a porcupine, and jaws like alligators emerging from the treeline at top lilt was forever burned into the memory of what he was sure to be the rest of his very short life.

Then he shrieked, dignity be damned.

"Follow Webber!" he cried desperately, reaching for as many recently crafted weapons as he could. Together they ran—no, _rocketed_ across the field towards the forest opposite, where Webber had disappeared not moments past.

Running for their lives had become a common daily occurrence, but each threat was far more frightening than the last. It was when he came to this conclusion that Wilson realized, much to his utter horror and contempt for this girl's lack of respect for her own fragile mortality, that Wendy was not, in fact, escaping with him.

She stood by the science machine, bone dagger held in one hand, her sister's flower in the other.

"FOR HE ABOVE'S SAKE, WENDY!"

It might interest one to know that it was here that Wilson faced one of the most trying dilemmas of his life. You see, while he knew it would be expected as a gentleman in His Majesty's service—or even a humble and devout servant of He Above's divine rule—to return to the lady's side to defend her from a most certain and gruesome death, he had an overwhelming, overpowering, and undeniable desire to leave her there in the middle of the ruddy field and flee, for she had made her choice and she made a damned poor one.

And so he did run, reader.

The most dire decision of his life, and he had decided his course before he could have even doffed a hat.

Wilson Percival Higgsbury shed his gentlemanly status the moment he turned his back on her and what had to be hell hounds, the spawn of Cerberus, the sadistic creations of He Below himself. The remorse was as of little consequence as the cut on his hand.

As soon as he crossed the forest's threshold to his safety, he was lost. There was no clear or distinct path in which Webber would have taken. The trees were tightly knit, gnarled and barbed, and moving between them proved difficult.

Ah, but what is that? There, off to the south, a clearing! Wilson took to the direction immediately, tripping and trudging through the brush towards his goal. The ordeal took the same amount of time it would have taken to brew a pot of tea.

As soon as he passed the trees, he stopped. In the wide open space, reality seemed so loud and unbearably heavy. He Above, did he truly just abandon one of the few friends he had left? That he had ever known?

"It had to be done!" he reasoned with himself. "Surely we would have perished with her! The loss of one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century would have been a needless waste!"

 _But now you are alone, and your soul is damned._

"Stop saying that! We've been through the social construct of a soul, it is biblical babble!"

 _But it is a sound construct, at least in Freud and Jung's models of the mind. You will carry this moment for the rest of your life, and that shall tarnish your intellectual worth._

"Blast! Blast it all!" Wilson gave a howl of rage and kicked at a rock. "No! Better to have survived and solved this world's mysteries than perished—"

Wilson's stomach dropped down through his bowels. Upon the offhand mention of the world's mysteries, he recalled that the primary mystery of his study was that of the door with a face, a door of which required a quantum field harmonizer, often shaped as a ring, which was left abandoned at the foot of the science machine where Wendy made her final stand.

 _ **TO BE CONTINUED…**_


End file.
